Wildlife fears as grasslands lose out to tree plantations

Biodiversity is being sacrificed in the rush to increase woodlands, warn nature charities

BRITAIN is at risk of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” by planting the wrong kinds of woodland, nature charities have warned, as new data show more than a million acres of grassland have been displaced by trees since 1990.

Overall, Great Britain lost 1.9million acres of grassland to other uses between 1990 and 2015, according to analysis of satellite data by the UK Centre of Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH).

That includes 800,000 acres of new urban land, roughly the size of Cornwall, which is mostly in England.

Scotland has gained 1.2million acres of woodland, almost the size of Norfolk, as its forestry industry has grown since the Nineties.

Argyll and Bute lost the largest amount of grassland (180,000 acres) in Great Britain and gained the largest area of woodland (160,000 acres).

The Conservatives pledged to plant 30 million trees per year in its 2019 election manifesto to help reach net zero targets and increase green spaces.

But the Wildlife Trusts warned yesterday that there is a risk of harming biodiversity if we end up with monocultural tree plantations.

“If we’re going to have any hope of reversing the appalling declines in wildlife that the UK has experienced in recent decades, we need to make more space for nature with at least a third of our land and sea being managed for nature’s recovery by 2030,” said Craig Bennett, the chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts.

“This means increasing the overall land available for a range of critical habitat types and ensuring they are protected and connected.

“What we must avoid is robbing Peter to pay Paul; such as replacing species-rich grassland which is critical for hundreds of insect and birds species, with monoculture tree plantations that have precious little value for wildlife.”

Grasslands have a vital role plant and insect diversity, and in Britain store two billion tons of carbon.

Increasing woodland cover also has a key role in locking up more carbon from the atmosphere. The UK has just 13 per cent woodland cover compared with 38 per cent in Europe.

But historical tree planting initiatives have sometimes gone awry, particularly when only a single species is planted across a large area, as is often the case in the timber industry.

In one recent example, Nestlé apologised and pulled up saplings it had sponsored in a dairy farm in Cumbria, after it emerged that they had destroyed rare wild flowers.

Joanna Lewis, policy director at the Soil Association said the expansion in woodland was a good thing, but cautioned that “it is important that the right trees are grown in the right places for nature as well as climate”.

The analysis by UKCEH also showed a loss of nearly 200,000 acres of arable farmland, mostly in Scotland.

Meanwhile, countryside charity CPRE said the displacement of grass- lands in England for urban areas was “no coincidence” since the Government “weakened national policies preventing low-density new housing”.

“Developers have been given free rein to build unaffordable, sprawling housing that make people far too car reliant. This trend will worsen if the Government continues to pursue plans to deregulate the planning system,” said Tom Fyans, policy director at CPRE.

The analysis by UKCEH is the first time changes have been mapped so accurately and the centre plans to now produce annual land-use maps.