Wyming Brook Nature Reserve, in west Sheffield, is home to babbling streams, mossy crags, sweet-smelling pines and abundant wildlife but it could soon look like a “post-apocalyptic landscape” according to campaigners.

The government’s Forestry Commission served a Statutory Plant Health Notice (SPHN) to Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust forcing it to chop down hundreds of larch trees after they contracted Phytophthora ramorum – a non-native, fungus-like disease.

There is no cure and it is the Commission’s policy to destroy trees in the infected area – including healthy trees – as quickly as possible to prevent spreading.

Work started in September and is expected to be completed by Christmas.

An anonymous campaigner launched a petition on October 18 urging Sheffield Council leader Tom Hunt to challenge the SPHN and call a moratorium to suspend work.

They said: “We demand an immediate stop to the felling of trees at Wyming Brook Nature Reserve. As the landowner, you have a duty to protect this very special place, possibly Sheffield’s most celebrated beauty spot and a jewel of nature.

“The operation will destroy forever what the people of Sheffield and beyond have come to know and love. There will no longer be a ‘wooded ravine’ but a bare-sided valley in a post-apocalyptic landscape, as has been the case with other larch woodlands in the region, such as the former nature reserve at Redmires.

“To challenge the SPHN would be unusual, we admit. It would place Sheffield Council as the leading council in the country fighting to protect its natural treasures.

“There is no middle ground here. You will either be the leader who saved this jewel of nature, or you will end up as the leader who presided over its demise.”

More than 800 people – a rapidly rising figure – have signed the petition at the time of writing.

The petition can be found here: https://www.change.org/p/save-wyming-brook-trees?source_location=topic_page.

Sheffield Council was contacted for comment but is yet to respond to the calls.

Why are Wyming Brook trees being felled?

A spokesperson for Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust said it is expected to have an “unavoidable dramatic effect” on the landscape but there was nothing it could do to save them.

Roy Mosley, head of conservation and land management, said: “Over the last year we’ve been open and honest about the planned works on site; sharing articles, putting up signs and talking to visitors about this terrible fungus attacking larches on site.

“Fortunately, the SPHN doesn’t cover the whole site and larches only make up a small proportion of the overall mixed, broadleaf-conifer woodland.

“As such, we think the integrity of the woodland overall will be maintained, and due to this action larch trees outside the SPHN area (on the reserve and beyond) may not succumb to the disease.

“We also expect, in time, that trees will fill the spaces created through natural regeneration creating a diverse, resilient woodland.”

In some cases, the Trust is considering ring-barking certain trees to create a standing deadwood resource.

Phytophthora ramorum, a microscopic fungal-like organism that causes extensive damage and death to various species, was found in several Sheffield sites.

The name translates as “plant destroyer” and it was responsible for some of the worst plant epidemics in history, including the infamous Irish potato famine in the 19th century, according to Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust.

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