England Tree Strategy consultation

Fragile upland habitats, natural regeneration, integrated land use and protecting existing woodland should all feature in new Tree Strategy.

Between 19 June and 11 September 2020 the UK Government invited responses to its consultation on a new England Tree Strategy. This strategy is intended to guide the creation and management of new woodland in England as part of achieving the UK Government’s commitment to increasing tree planting to 30,000 hectares per year across the UK by 2025.

While the Trust is broadly supportive of the Government’s tree planting aims, we would like to see greater recognition of the different types of woodland habitats and the opportunity for a win-win for wild woods. This means a strategy that supports land managers to reduce grazing pressures enabling natural regeneration of native woodland and woodland scrub habitats to develop.

We also urged that the strategy embraces integrated land use (e.g. agroforestry); creates new opportunities for restoration of montane habitat and protects existing ancient woodlands and veteran trees.

The England Tree Strategy is one of several strategies being advanced under the 25 Year Environment Plan alongside the Tree Health Resilience Strategy, the England Peat Strategy, the Nature Strategy and the future Environmental Land Management Scheme (please see separate Trust response on this which is also available from our website).

You can read our full response below.