BIO0034

Written evidence submitted by the Woodland Trust to:

The Environmental Audit Committee inquiry into Biodiversity and Ecosystems.  September 2020

Introduction

1. The Woodland Trust welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this inquiry.  As a member of Wildlife and Countryside Link (“Link”, the largest environment and wildlife coalition in England), we support their separate submission regarding Biodiversity and Ecosystems to the Environmental Audit Committee.
2.                                                                              The Woodland Trust is submitting this additional evidence to highlight supplementary information about woods and trees that we see as key for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem function.  This evidence follows the issues and questions posed in the inquiry, but not all of the questions have been answered.

About the Trust             

3. The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the UK, with over 1,200 sites in its care covering over 29,000 hectares. Access to its woods is free. Established in 1972, the Woodland Trust now has over 500,000 supporters.
4. The Trust wants to see a UK rich in native woods and trees for people and wildlife, and has three key aims: i) protect ancient woodland which is rare, unique and irreplaceable; ii) restoration of damaged ancient woodland, bringing precious pieces of our natural history back to life; iii) plant native trees and woods with the aim of creating resilient landscapes for people and wildlife.
5. Contact: Richard Barnes, MCIEEM (Lead Government Affairs Officer).

Evidence

The state of biodiversity:

6.                How effectively is the Government monitoring the impact of UK activities on biodiversity, at home and abroad?

There is no systematic monitoring or recording of loss of ancient woodland (or other woodland) and veteran trees through the planning process.  The Government chose not to introduce a “Duty to Report” within the Environment Bill, despite Defra consulting on such a duty in 2018

7.                Where should the four nations prioritise resources to tackle biodiversity loss?

• Native woodland expansion and increasing canopy cover for biodiversity will provide a wide range of public benefits (ecosystem services) for people, and lock up carbon.  Planting the right trees in the right places (such as: in river catchments prone to flooding; close to where people live) will maximise those benefits.
• Ancient woodland protection, restoration and management – ancient woodland is one of our richest terrestrial habitats but many are in poor condition, especially those planted with conifers.  Ancient woodland also stores huge amounts of carbon, above and below ground.
• Natural regeneration of woodland is great for biodiversity, providing valuable transitional scrubby habitat.  It is also good for carbon capture (because of reduced soil disturbance and fast growth rates) and helps adaptation of native species to climate change and new diseases.
• All publicly funded tree-planting should use UK & Ireland Sourced & Grown (UKISG) saplings to reduce future pest and disease threats, learning from the devastating impact of ash dieback and the recent introduction of oak processionary moth.

Evaluating measures to conserve and enhance biodiversity:

8.                How should the Environmental Land Management scheme maintain and improve biodiversity? What role might alternative land use play in delivering improvements to biodiversity under the ELM scheme?

Meeting our ambitious environmental targets, including net zero and the recovery of nature, will require a fundamental change in the way we currently use and manage land. To be truly transformational, ELM must promote a multi-functional approach to land use that supports sustainable land management and will restore ecosystem functioning at a landscape level. Ambitious objectives can only be met through a scheme that recognises and supports the role of native trees in delivering all the main ELM objectives.

• ELM must provide a genuinely integrated approach to land management, which considers both agriculture and forestry. The previous separation of agriculture and forestry has dis-incentivised many land managers from incorporating trees and woods on their land. It is critical to the future success of this scheme and to environmental objectives, including targets for increasing tree cover, that trees are seen as an integral part of the whole landscape.
• Public money should be used to incentivise actions that are proven to deliver environmental benefits, with priority given to those that will deliver the best value for money by giving the highest return in terms of public goods. For example, when creating woodland, if biodiversity is an objective, native trees remain the best option and can also deliver significant carbon sequestration as well as improvements to water quality and flood mitigation if appropriately sited.
• Trees can play a key role in delivering all the objectives of the 25 Year Environment Plan. Support for woodland creation is important but to maximise the potential for trees/woods to deliver environmental benefits, ELM must provide support for a range of woodland actions including woodland management, restoration of ancient woodland, natural colonisation, management and care of ancient and veteran trees and agroforestry. The Woodland Trust would be keen to input further into discussions on what ELM pays for.
• In order to reach the target of increasing woodland in the UK to 19% by 2050, the Woodland Trust recommends planting 10,000ha/year in England. ELM can be a key mechanism for delivering this but will need to be much more ambitious and provide support for woods and trees at all tiers, to farmers as well as other land managers.
• All tiers of ELM must be open to all land managers. Making Tier 1 available only to farmers unnecessarily reinforces the separation between agriculture and forestry and will limit opportunities for ELM to deliver environmental public goods and tree planting targets. In addition:
• Tier 1 should include woodland options, including support for hedgerows, woodland management and agroforestry.
• Tier 2 should include support for the management and restoration of ancient woodland and ancient/veteran trees, as well as natural regeneration.
• The focus of Tier 3 should be on large, collaborative projects aiming to restore the ecological resilience and functioning of the landscape.

9.                How effective are the new measures to enhance biodiversity within the Environment Bill, particularly biodiversity net gain and Nature Recovery Networks? Do these measures complement existing regulatory frameworks and address issues surrounding how to value nature? & How should Nature Recovery Networks be planned, funded and delivered?

•                   Biodiversity net gain (BNG) has the potential to reverse the decline in biodiversity currently happening in England through the development management process.  However, BNG cannot apply to irreplaceable habitats such as ancient woodland, as any damage will always entail a net loss to biodiversity.  It is also important that BNG is delivered equitably to the communities affected, rather than be provided miles away in a location that provides less access to nature.
•                   Nature Recovery Networks (NRN) are not clearly defined in the Environment Bill.  NRNs are good in principle but there is uncertainty around funding, and protection of habitat once it’s created (also a problem for BNG).
•                   Nonetheless, establishing coherent and resilient networks is important, especially for connectivity, buffering sensitive habitats and delivering “Lawton principles” (summarised as: more; bigger; better; connected). Trees outside woods (hedges, street trees and other urban trees) and agroforestry can play an important role in NRNs.

10.             How effective are other policies for conservation and enhancement of existing natural habitats, such as the Woodland Grant Schemes?

• Some of the woodland grant schemes are biased towards productive forestry, which isn’t as good for biodiversity, and not in keeping with the new focus on Public Money for Public Goods.  The Woodland Improvement Grant is intended to provide support for improving the biodiversity of a woodland, for example by restoring ancient woodland. However, the rate of £100/ha is insufficient - the Woodland Trust estimates that ancient woodland restoration on our estate costs £4,300/ha on average.
• The payment per hectare approach tends to bias towards large woodland estates with sufficient woodland hectares to make an application worthwhile. However, the majority of priority native woodland habitats are small and fragmented and our experience is that many land managers do not consider the payment worth the bureaucracy of applying for the scheme.

Co-ordination of UK environmental policy:

11.             How can biodiversity and ecosystems help achieve the air, soil and water quality objectives in the 25 Year Environment Plan?

Trees and woodland are essential to all of these objectives, making a major contribution to numerous ecosystem services, including:

•              sequestering carbon

•              providing flood protection

•              stabilising soils and maintaining soil health

•              filtering air pollutants

•              improving mental and physical well-being

•              helping regulate temperatures.

Most of these issues are referenced for the background research and evidence in the Trust’s publication Residential Development and Trees (2019,

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/1688/residential-developments-and-trees.pdf ).

Economics and biodiversity:

12.             What are the possible approaches to balancing economic growth and conservation of nature and its contributions? Is there evidence these approaches work and can be implemented?  & What does the UK Government need to do to maximise human prosperity – in terms of health, economic, and social wellbeing—within the ecological and resource constraints of a finite planet? What alternative models and measures of economic welfare can feasibly help achieve this?

Economic growth and conservation of nature are not mutually exclusive and should not be seen as a balancing act - biodiversity conservation is essential for future economic prosperity.  Europe Economics produced a report on the Economic Benefits of Woodland (2015, https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/1732/economic-benefits-of-woodland.pdf ), and the following is a direct extract from the Executive Summary:

“The broad range and nature of the benefits associated with woodlands might mean that their full value is not understood and reflected in important decisions. 

Our objective is therefore to consider as comprehensive a range of benefits associated with trees and woodlands as possible. We consider benefits under three categories:

Direct use value. Enjoying goods and services produced by or in woodlands:

• Business. Producing goods and services with a market value, such as timber – output of forestry goods tends to increase by over £200 a year with each additional hectare of woodland; and
• Recreation. Visiting woodlands – there are 700 visits for every hectare of woodland valued at £1 to £3.50 per visit.

Indirect use value. Benefiting from positive externalities provided by woodlands:

• Flood management. Reducing the extent of damage in floods – the potential value in terms of flood risk reduction of managing a hectare of woodland located in the upper Thames catchment could be £350 to £500 per hectare, per year;
• Health benefits. Particularly improving air quality – air pollution mitigation benefits in urban areas have been estimated at around £240 a year for each hectare of woodland;
• Water management. Improving water quality – estimated to provide €489 in benefits for each hectare in a Danish study; and
• Aesthetic value. Seeing trees, either at home or while travelling – commuters value views of woods at £227 a year and views of woodlands near cities from their homes at £268 a year.

Non-use value. Appreciating goods and services that woodlands may provide to others or in the future:

• Climate change mitigation. Reducing the extent of global climate change – at the current official carbon price, the value of the carbon dioxide locked up in UK woodlands is around £16,000 per hectare; and
• Option, existence and bequest value.  Safeguarding woods and their associated biodiversity for future generations – valued at, for example, £1,848 per hectare, per year, for lowland broad-leaved native forest.

On those values, and excluding flood and water management benefits and health benefits beside air

pollution mitigation, the total value of UK woodlands is around £270bn.

There are a range of areas in which trees and woodlands might in themselves, or as part of a mix of policies, compete against other options which do not have the same wider benefits or might even have wider disbenefits. Those areas range from flood defence, to rural regeneration, to facilitating housing development. It might be easy for an appraisal process which did not include any or all of the wider benefits and disbenefits to allocate fewer resources to trees and woodlands than would be optimal given a more complete consideration of their effects.”

Pairing nature-based solutions to climate change with biodiversity:

13.             Which nature-based solutions are most effective in achieving both climate and biodiversity goals?

See the answers in Paragraph 7, but for a full analysis on how to increase tree cover and address the nature and climate emergency, see the Woodland Trust’s Emergency Tree Plan (2020, https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/47692/emergency-tree-plan.pdf )

14.             What would constitute clear indicators of progress and cost-effectiveness of nature-based solutions and how should trade-offs and co-benefits associated with nature-based solutions, biodiversity and socioeconomic outcomes be considered?

The Government should use the appropriate legislation (such as the Environment Bill, or a statutory England Tree Strategy) to set statutory targets to support the following objectives:

• Increase the percentage of native woodland in favourable ecological condition.  The large majority of England’s native woodlands are currently not managed appropriately. This can reduce their conservation value and their ability to absorb carbon. It can also make them vulnerable to damage from overgrazing, invasive species and tree diseases. Using existing Government measures of woodland health, a target should be set to increase the percentage of all woodland in favourable ecological condition.
• Increase hectares of Plantation on Ancient Woodland (PAWS) undergoing restoration.  Ancient Woodland is irreplaceable and represents the most diverse terrestrial habitat in the UK. Across the UK, over 200,000 hectares of former native woodland is currently planted with mostly commercial forestry. As this commercial crop reaches maturity and is harvested, there is an opportunity to restore the original woodland, undertaking management which allows its original features to regenerate. Although the Forestry Commission is formally charged with overseeing such work through its Key Performance Indicators, in 2018 only 37 hectares were recorded as being in restoration on private land.
• Increase the percentage of England under tree cover.  Biodiversity and carbon sequestration imperatives both require significant and sustained increases in woodland cover in England. As such they should be taken forward together via a target for increased tree cover. Woodland expansion in England is well below the necessary future rate with just 1,000 hectares of new broadleaf woodland being established in 2018/2019 in England. The England Tree Strategy should have statutory responsibility to address this, setting out interim and overall targets for woodland expansion over a 10-year period.
• Increase hectares of new native woodland creation achieved by tree planting. New woodland must deliver for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity. With 53% of UK woodland wildlife in decline, we need targets that ensure this integration is established and maintained through a specific target for native woodland creation.
• Increase hectares of new native woodland creation achieved by natural regeneration.  As our climate begins to change, it is vital our native trees and other woodland species are able to adapt. Research clearly shows that genetically diverse native woodland in the UK can and does respond to changing local circumstance including rising temperatures if allowed to adapt through natural regeneration. Setting a specific target for new native woodland creation achieved by natural regeneration will help reduce the reliance on importing trees to meet targets, which carries a higher risk of introducing new pests and disease.  

September 2020