As I've mentioned before, the New Forest isn't really a natural phenomena, it's by far the consequence of 6000 years of human manipulation and exploitation, even the restoration of open heath or streams to their previous courses only restores the land to another arbitrary point in human exploitation. Natural would have been the wild wood, and that fell to stone axes. The forest we see today was, and still to a great degree is, shaped by forestry and the production of timber. Young deciduous trees grow in expansive blocks amongst a filigree of varying sized drainage ditches, which in turn feed the larger drains flowing in to the forests streams. Soon this extensive network, mostly dormant through the middle of the year, will come to life.
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