Trees plant hope for brighter future

Recognition of the true value of forests could be the catalyst for a step change in UK woodland creation. New thinking coming to the fore will see the marrying of corporate and environmental bodies to deliver holistic benefits on a local, national and global scale. One of the vehicles to “building back better” is targeted and substantial investment in forestry by environmentally astute governments and private markets which are already switched on to the many services trees provide us with other than timber.

Storage of carbon from the atmosphere is one of the drivers behind the UK green finance initiative, which looks to large companies to report on their emissions and track their efforts to reduce or offset them.

Investing in forestry is a proven, simple and deliverable way to offset carbon emissions and so the opportunities are vast. Total value of the world’s forests was estimated to be $150 trillion in a recent Boston Consulting Group report – nearly double the value of global stock markets – with trees’ carbon storage ability amounting to 90% of this value.

Nature-based solutions to corporate problems may jar for some but if we don’t link environmental issues to economics then how do we actually make it work? Conducted within the right framework, it could be of huge benefit to all and actually deliver on the promises of carbon reduction and tree planting manifestos of the past.

There will be a need for more partnership working between parts of the economy but already, through our work with housebuilders, commercial developers and landowners, we can see the connectivity and natural synergy to bring about fruitful relationships if we can quantify our natural capital.

These assets have the capacity to support global human wellbeing and sustainable economic growth, while

underpinning our economy. There is an increase in global demand to protect and enhance our natural capital assets, with private markets being created for the delivery of wider environmental benefits – and trees are just one of those assets.

So how do we go about increasing the number of trees we are planting?

Tree planting across the UK last year totalled just 13,460 hectares (85% of which was planted in Scotland) – that’s less than half the government’s recently reconfirmed target of 30,000 hectares of new woodland every year by 2025.

It sounds like a big number from where we are now but the Committee on Climate Change (which set the figure) has identified tree planting as a cost-effective way to lock up carbon.

With cross-party buy-in and public support, there should be nothing stopping us from really getting to grips with a UK-wide programme of tree planting.

One of the areas we should be looking at is a reorientation of agricultural funding to fulfil public desire by encouraging sensitive siting and planting of trees.

In the UK, lowland woodland creation projects which would not compromise prime arable land

but would invigorate an interest in investing in carbon capture, should be an interesting proposition to many farmers and landowners.

There is also, however, an urgent need to plant more large-scale productive, construction-grade, timber-producing woodlands if we are to meet the government targets and displace high emission materials such as concrete and steel.

Such new forests are ideally sited on mid-slope grazing land of currently low conservation value. In Scotland we have been planting in excess of 10,000 hectares per annum in the last couple of years and, as a country, we are well placed to build on this.

During the past few months we have successfully marketed, brought to a closing date and sold forested properties and bare land for planting which all attracted a great deal of interest and underlines the long-term interest in woodland investment as a green entity.

This market has not stalled but has continued and strengthened as it looks towards a future where greater focus will be given to our capacity to grow more trees.

Planting across the UK last year totalled just 13,460 hectares

Spruce trees planted in a restoration project at Glenbreck in the Borders.