“The new £640m Nature for Climate fund will increase tree planting in England.

The government would work with the Devolved Administrations to triple UK tree-planting rates to 30,000 hectares every year – space for at least 30 million more trees – in line with recommendations from the independent Committee on Climate Change.

Existing woodland like the Northern Forest and Northumberland Forest would be expanded, new forests would be created across the country. Towns and cities would also benefit with more trees planted in urban areas to improve air quality.

The Nature for Climate Fund will be used to dramatically increase rates of tree-planting in England with more research into the most appropriate species to plant across the country, a scaling up the nursery sector to grow the saplings, new partnerships with landowners, and increased planting rates on sites.

Tripling tree planting rates to 30,000 hectares a year [75,000 acres] across the UK – equivalent to 46,000 football pitches.

The Government would accept the independent Climate Change Committee’s recommendation to increase tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares a year and work with Devolved Administrations to achieve this goal. This will deliver new forests across the country, while expanding existing plans like the Northern Forest and Northumberland Forest."

Confor's response:

We welcome the greater ambition, but much more needs to be done to ensure these challenging targets are actually met - especially given the failure to reach the modest target of 11 million trees in five years set by the previous Conservative government. The status quo has to change and that will require strong political leadership - if not, Vote Blue, Go Green is meaningless.

It is heartening the manifesto mentions scaling up the nursery sector and forging partnerships with landowners as regional partnerships are crucial to growing new forests at scale across England. The reference to working with the devolved administrations is interesting and England needs to learn from the positive experience of increased planting in Scotland. Indeed, England needs a Mackinnon-style review of processes (which helped turbo-charge planting in Scotland) to ‘get tree planting done’ - or we risk five more years of dither and delay.

"A Liberal Democrat government will plant 60 million trees every year, increasing UK forest cover by 1 million hectares by 2045.

Our plan to tackle the climate emergency will involve the largest tree-planting programme in UK history. Planting trees is one of the most viable ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere and is vital for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Reforesting will have other benefits such as helping reverse our declining biodiversity, reducing air pollution and improving public spaces. It will also increase the use of timber products in construction, which capture carbon and reduce construction emissions."

From Liberal Democrats manifesto:

"Combat climate change, and benefit nature and people by coordinating the planting of 60 million trees a year and introducing requirements for the greater use of sustainably harvested wood in construction."

Confor's response:

The Woodland Creation Targets we published this year, suggest 40,000 hectares of new woodland should be planted every year by 2030 to make the contribution needed to reduce atmospheric carbon. The Lib Dem pledge to increase UK forest cover by 1 million ha by 2045 equates to 40,000 ha a year for 25 years - in line with the Confor target.

This is very positive, but the same caveats apply as to the Conservative targets - processes must be improved and all agencies must pull together to make it happen. However, if the Lib Dems hold the balance of power in a new government, we look forward to them pressing for these ambitious targets. As a staunch, pro-EU and Stop Brexit party, they will be aware UK forest cover (13 per cent) is only one-third of the EU average - and that this has to change. 

Plans to increase the use of timber in construction are very welcome and we will press to make sure this is home-grown timber whenever possible, reducing the needs for imports.

Increasing Woodland

"To make our contribution to tackling climate change we need to substantially increase the acreage of Welsh forestry. Since Natural Resources Wales took over responsibility for forestry in 2013, new woodland planted has been less than 1,000 hectares  a year, and in some years has been below 500 hectares. We should aim for a minimum planting rate of 2,000 hectares a year from 2020, a target recommended by the UK Climate Change Committee.

We will examine the case for establishing a dedicated forestry organization to undertake the urgent task of addressing the Climate Emergency by planting more trees. We will ensure that this policy is closely connected  with agri-environment incentives for farmers. Increasing our native tree woodlands not only has a major part to play in terms of carbon capture, but offers many other benefits including flood control, providing wildlife habitat, improving the quality of our landscape, and creating useful timber products."

Confor's response:

It's great Plaid Cymru recognises much more needs to be done to increase tree planting rates as a means of fighting climate change.  There’s a recognition Wales has been languishing behind other parts of the UK on tree planting.  The measures put forward closely align with Confor’s vision for forestry in Wales, though it will set itself up to fail on planting targets if only ‘native tree woodlands’ are to be created, as well as miss the opportunity to create ‘useful timber products’.