TWO French Percheron horses have helped in the extraction of diseased trees in Backwell.
Backwell Environmental Trust (BET) owns 22 acres of nature reserves located high on the hill above the village.
The trust aims to protect their local natural areas and the wildlife within them. Their two reserves are the 10-acre Jubilee Stone Wood and the 12-acre Badgers Wood.
Like many other locations in North Somerset, there have been numerous trees infected with ash dieback. The BET estimates that 90 per cent of ash trees on its two nature reserves will die due to ash dieback disease.
With 12% of Great Britain's broadleaved woodland areas being made up from ash trees, the prevalence of the disease is concerning. Ash dieback is caused by a fungus called Hymenoscyphus fraxineus which is native to eastern Asia.
It is thought that the disease has been present in England since at least 2005.
Wanting to save these natural spaces, members of the BET knew that they had to act quickly, felling the most infected trees close to houses, roads and footpaths.
The trust teamed up with Backwell Logs, a local firewood supplier, to help share the high costs of this.
However, their plans faced a hurdle when they realised that the steep terrain of the reserves makes timber extraction a challenging task.
The group decided to revert to more traditional methods, calling in heavy horses to help move the loads.
A spokesperson from the trust said: "It has been truly amazing to see just how easily the horses have moved such heavy loads with relative ease.
"Once hitched to a massive trunk, they use their immense pulling power to get the log moving with no hesitation and then drag it along at a very fast walking pace.
"It has been simply fabulous to be able to use such a very eco-friendly, traditional approach to extracting timber from the woodlands and they have been the perfect solution to cope with the difficult terrain and narrow paths."
As stated on the Science Direct website, heavy horses have been bred for centuries for the purpose of pulling, ploughing, and farm labour.
Common breeds include Percheron, Belgian, Shire, and Clydesdale.
For more information, please visit the Backwell Environment Trust's website.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here