A habitat is any area where plants and animals can live undisturbed. The word ‘habitat’ comes from a Greek word meaning ‘home’. Even a city is a habitat with wildlife making its home alongside human beings, in and around buildings, but usually we think of wild areas when we speak of habitats. Wild places everywhere are under pressure from human beings. Why is this ? An ever-increasing population needs housing, clean water, a supply of food and industry to supply the people’s needs. All this development requires space – and wild habitats are destroyed in the process. Our countryside today is almost all man-made. For about 7000 years, following the end of the last Ice Age, nearly the whole of Britain was covered with forest mostly consisting of broad-leaved trees, oak and elm being the most common species. Then, about 5,000 years ago, the Neolithic people in Britain began to clear the forests for cultivation and permanent settlements. In 500 BC the Celts arrived with their more advanced technologies began to create fields for crops and meadows for cattle. Most of the remaining forest disappeared during the 16th and 17th centuries to provide timber for boats or charcoal for the iron industry. During this century, even more of our woodlands have been cleared and very few of the scattered woodlands date back to prehistoric times. Most have been replanted at some stage and are poorly managed. Some of the most successful broad-leaved woodlands today are those managed by private estates. Every habitat has its own particular set of plant and animal species. Together the different species make up a community and they all depend on each other in some way. Every living thing in a habitat is dependent on another for its survival. As in all habitats, many food chains exist in a hedgerow. Some chains are short, others are long, but they all start with a plant and end in a ‘top’ predator (an animal which hunts, kills and eats another animal – ‘top’ predators are not usually eaten themselves).