Emergency Tree Plan

 Blackford Hill, Edinburgh

The world currently faces two major environmental crises; climate change and biodiversity collapse. We need urgent action to prevent irreversible damage. In many countries, including the UK,  massive expansion of woodland can play a huge role in addressing these challenges. 

The Woodland Trust has just produced its Emergency Tree Plan. It's a brief but comprehensive outline of how the UK can increase woodland cover. 

Trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere and so can reduce the climate warming effect of carbon dioxide. Native woodlands offer wonderful habitats for a wide variety of plants and animals that wouldn't thrive elsewhere.

We need to plant more trees, but we need to make sure that these trees are in the right places. Some habitats like peatland are important carbon sinks in their own right and harbour rare species of plants and animals that would not thrive in woodland, so woods should not be planted on peatlands. 

We need to plant good mixes of native tree species, that have been grown from seed in this country (this means we're not importing the diseases that can otherwise come into the country on the roots of seedlings imported from abroad). 

We need to look after the forests and ancient trees we already have and to allow them to regenerate themselves. 

If you believe in the importance of planting the right trees in the right places and in expanding woodland across the UK, please consider joining the Woodland Trust campaign to contact your political representatives. 

If you are in Scotland, please visit this link. 

In Wales please visit this link. 

In England, please visit this link. 

In Northern Ireland, please visit this link.