Planting of nearly 60 million trees at risk over funding uncertainty

Over 50% of the 20 million trees planted in England since 2020 were paid for by the Nature for Climate Fund [2], a £750m pot dedicated to woodland creation and peatland restoration. In the year to March 2024, 78% of new woods and trees were funded by the scheme.

This funding is now in question however. The Government has yet to commit to replacing the fund as they look to close a £22 billion deficit ahead of the Budget at the end of October. In the absence of new funding, the target to create 7,500ha of new tree cover in England in 2025 would not be achieved. This target rises to 8,900ha in 2030 [3].

Translated into numbers of trees [4], this places the planting of nearly 9 million trees in 2025 in question. This is the number if the current proportion funded by Nature for Climate Fund schemes is maintained, alongside 3% paid for through the farming budget, which is also under pressure [5]. As the targets increase towards the end of the decade, this number increases to over 10 million trees in 2030, calling into question a cumulative total of 57 million trees over six years in England, if a new fund for woodland creation is not brought forward by this government. In area, this would amount to nearly 40,000 hectares, equivalent to almost 56,000 football pitches.

Commenting on the analysis, Tom Lancaster, land, food and farming analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said, “New woodlands are critical in the fight against climate change. They absorb and store carbon, helping in the race to net zero emissions, and also help farmers and communities adapt to the impacts of extreme weather by slowing flood waters, shading livestock and reducing air pollution.

“We are now at a critical point in the effort to expand England’s woodlands, as the area created in recent years has steadily increased. Uncertainty now risks stalling that momentum just as farmers and other landowners are thinking about the future. If we want more of them to embrace woods and trees, they will need a strong signal now that the funding will be there to meet the ambitious woodland targets for England over the next five years.”

The uncertainty around future funding comes as the Climate Change Committee (CCC) recently warned that emissions from agriculture and land use need to fall much faster, and progress on woodland creation needs to be accelerated before 2030 [6]. Compounding the risk to new woods and trees is the wider question over the future of the farm budget, also a key source of funding for woodland and wider habitat creation.

Andrew Allen, Lead Policy Advocate at the Woodland Trust said, "The Nature for Climate Fund has helped get millions of trees in the ground. In projects like the Northern Forest, these trees are helping store thousands of tonnes of carbon a year, creating networks of new habitat for nature and giving hundreds of thousands of people new access to woodland on their doorstep, which is crucial for health and wellbeing.

"The Government must not squander the momentum which has been built up. We need to maintain public investment in trees and woods in the coming years if we are to have any chance of tackling the nature and climate crises, including meeting legal targets that the Government itself has set."

The £750m spent on the Nature for Climate scheme in the five years of last Parliament represents just 0.1% of UK government departmental expenditure in the single year 2023/24 [7]. Although an increase in funding is needed to meet higher woodland creation targets in coming years, it still represents a tiny fraction of overall expenditure.

Woodland creation is a central part of the CCC’s recommended pathway to net zero, one of the new governments five missions [8]. Failure to create this amount of woodland would mean missing out on greenhouse gas removals of 577,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) each year by 2030, or a cumulative total of 1.96 MtCO2e between 2025 and 2030. This would require potentially less cost effective emissions savings from other sectors in order to stay on track to the 2050 net zero target.