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Aspects of Land
Spring / Summer 2018
FORESTRY
T
he Government has
made no secret of
its determination
for this generation
to be the first
to leave the
environment in a
better state than it
found it. A key part
of this is their manifesto pledge from 2015
to increase tree cover across England by
12% by 2060. However, quite how this was
going to be achieved has been uncertain.
In order to meet this target, 180,000
hectares (444,790 acres) of new trees
must be planted by the end of 2042; this
amounts to 5,000 hectares (12,355 acres)
every year but 2016 figures only reached
700 hectares (1,730 acres).
A drastic change is essential and the
Government hopes that the plans put
forward in the 25-year Environment Plan
will generate a passion for tree planting
across the country. Creating new forests,
providing the incentives to carry out extra
planting on private land and appointing a
national Tree Champion are all measures
designed to support the goal of planting 11
million trees.
But is the plan feasible? Reaction
following the announcement agreed that
the Plan is a welcome step in the right
direction but most agreed that it still lacks
mechanisms to promote delivery and
drive the change through.
James Adamson of Savills Forestry
Investment says: “There are some very
laudable targets but as always the devil
will be in the detail as to how these
individual measures are going to be
delivered. The objective to get to 12%
woodland cover is a fantastic goal, but
recent evidence shows that whether or
not the planting required to meet this
Tree planting has been on
the Government’s agenda
for a while, but how will the
25-year Environment Plan
change things?
target will be achieved often comes down
to simple economics.”
There is no doubt that planting trees
brings with it multiple benefits. Timber
is currently experiencing a renaissance
and is being used more and more in
construction. “Trees don’t require
particularly great land, so farmers could
put woodland on underperforming
areas,” James says. “Very few farms
aren’t improved somehow by woodland
planting; from reducing soil erosion by
cutting down wind and providing shade
for livestock, to providing a potential
source of diversification. All of our rural
agents would agree that farms with some
element of woodland are generally more
attractive than those without.”
However, there is a pinch point where
forestry simply cannot compete on land
values. “A lot of England has land values
that don’t make converting to forestry an
easy choice,” James says. “There is a lot
more planting taking place in Scotland
because suitable land is less than £2,000
an acre – the average land price in
England is just under £8,000 an acre, or
£5,000 an acre for poor livestock land,
where there is perhaps most scope for
tree planting.”
Grants including the Woodland
Creation Grant Scheme and the HS2
Woodland Fund, which aims to increase
planting of native woodland within the
buffer zone along the new railway line, are
PLANTING THE
NORTHERN FOREST
A key element of the 25-year
Environment Plan’s proposal
to increase tree planting is
backing the creation of a new
Northern Forest, with £5.7m of
Government funding.
Stretching across the country
with the M62 at its centre, the
scheme, led by the Woodland
Trust and The Community Forest
Trust, will incentivise landowners
and farmers to plant trees on
their land and also increase the
long term supply of English
grown timber.
Austin Brady, Director of
Conservation at the Woodland
Trust belives that a new tactic
is necessary in order to prevent
stalling tree-planting rates
falling any further. “A new
Northern Forest could accelerate
the benefits of community
forestry, support working for
nature at a landscape scale,
deliver a wide range of benefits
– including helping to reduce
flood risk – and adapt some of
the UK’s major towns and cities
to projected climate change,”
he says.
“The North of England
is perfectly suited to reap
the benefits of a project on
this scale. But this must be
a joined-up approach. We’ll
need to continue to work with
the Government and other
organisations to harness new
funding mechanisms such as
those promised in the Clean
Growth Strategy to plant
extensive areas of woodland to
lock up carbon. This will ensure
we can make a difference for the
long term.”
Marc Liebrecht of Savills
Forestry says that the previous
success of the National Forest in
Support of domestic timber is crucial
More than eight million trees were planted to create the National Forest
BILL ALLSOPP / ALAMY, SHUTTERSTOCK