Oak health webinar: observing and understanding oak health across the UK

Throughout 2026, the Forest Lab: observing and understanding oak health project, has been running training workshops working closely with oak woodland managers to provide the skills and resources to assess the condition of the oak woodland they manage. This webinar will provide feedback on progress so far and discuss the role of health condition monitoring in woodland management planning.

We aim to show how understanding the underlying health of oak trees, the prevalence of pests and diseases, alongside the scale at which these factors vary – individual trees affected, stands within a woodland affected, whole woodlands affected – can support informed management decisions.
The webinar is ideal for woodland managers, owners and volunteers. It will cover three key themes:

1. Understanding oak health: including current knowledge on Acute Oak Decline and other threats to oak.
2. The Forest Lab oak health project: the aims, methods developed so far, and what the initial results are telling us.
3. From assessment to action: using condition assessments to inform management, developing a decision support system for oak woodland. An interactive session to develop best practice recommendations.

About the Project

A partnership between Forest Research, Aberystwyth University and Sylva Foundation, this project aims to build a long-term, collaborative approach to managing oak woodland and monitoring oak health. Together we will gather crown condition assessments to assess the impacts of environmental change on native oak trees and understand the impact of management interventions in oak woodlands.

Through this programme, we are working to develop:

• A growing community of woodland managers empowered to assess, understand, and act on signs of oak decline
• A robust nationwide system for observing and recording oak health across the UK – with potential for future expansion to other tree species.