Different land-use policy pulls on forests in the UK: synergies, trade-offs, solutions
- Kathryn Hand
- Jul 22, 2024
- 6 min read
By Kathryn Hand
The UK faces a critical issue: a multitude of competing land use demands against a backdrop of limited available land. Forestry is one of these demands, which can have a multitude of benefits ranging from carbon sequestration to rural economy support. While tree planting enjoys widespread support, policies on tree planting are often focused on a specific region or type of forest, leading to a fragmented approach to decision-making on if, where and what kind of forests should be planted. This typifies land use policies in general in the UK, which are so disconnected that when all the areas in their individual land use commitments are combined, they exceed the total land area of the UK itself (Royal Society, 2023). In this context, how should we approach land use decisions, considering both forestry within the broader mosaic of UK land use, and the varying needs and values of different forest types?
On the 26th June, the Forest Ecology SIG hosted a lunchtime webinar in which Dr Jake Williams and Dr Andrew Weatherall tackled this question and shared some ideas about how we could solve it.
Jake Williams: “Policy pulls” on UK land use: repositioning land use as governable
Jake set the scene for us on land use planning in the UK: that a key challenge is we have a lot things we want to do with our land, but not a lot of land to do it on. The UK’s land use is also tightly linked to current national issues facing the UK, such as poor mental health, highly depleted nature, as well as a struggling economy in recent years. Connected to this is low investment, with a lot of wealth tied up in inflated land values. Land use is something we all pay for too, through public subsidies for certain land management options, such as the environmental land management scheme (replacing the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy) in England.
Despite the importance of land use in the UK, it’s rarely a matter of democratic debate. Changing how land is managed at a large scale is however challenging, as despite many connections to economic growth, interventions on land use are seen by policy makers as having a low rate of return. This has led to many institutional gaps in how land is governed in the UK. For example, the UK’s National Planning Policy Framework is implemented by local authorities, which often are not designed or incentivised to consider broader land use issues like nature recovery or climate adaptation, and often lack the expertise to address such issues.
Jake advocated for a more joined up approach with a new integrated land use strategy. Sitting behind this strategy could be a new central government agency dedicated to holistic land policy strategy, as has been recently recommended by the House of Lords. Decisions by this agency could be supported with a National Environmental Observatory – tasked with gathering and synthesising high-quality data, and by dedicated “forecasting infrastructure” to project land use changes, their interaction with the wider economy, and the impacts of different policy decisions. Such ‘forecasting infrastructure’ is essential to how the Bank of England sets monetary policy, so why shouldn’t the same approach be applied to our long-term land use decisions? Such an approach could pay dividends in developing a coordinated approach to managing our limited land resources. Further details can be found in the recent report by Pettorelli et al. 2024: Prioritising Land Use in the Midst of a Climate and Nature Emergency – Ten Key Messages for Scientists, Civil Society, and Policy Makers.
Questions posed to Jake included how much our land use in the UK should be influenced by our corresponding use of resources from other countries. For example, is it better to advocate for timber production here in the UK, perhaps sacrificing more of biodiversity here, in order to deliver greater carbon storage and nature benefits in, for example, tropical nations? Jake and Andrew both agreed that thinking of these issues in this way is an oversimplification of biodiversity, which cannot be reduced to simple species richness; and that as a wealthy nation, the UK should be demonstrating best practice when it comes to managing our environment.
Andrew Weatherall: Right place first – why native woodland creation and commercial afforestation are land use strategy decisions.
Andrew set us off into a deeper dive into specific land use decisions for forests. He echoed the issue of land scarcity in the UK, noting that in the UK we are only 19% self-sufficient in timber wood and 60% self-sufficient in food. We may struggle to meet our timber needs in the future as imports from overseas become harder to source. But we don’t just need land for timber, we also need forests to support climate adaptation, biodiversity and public health, meaning decision-making about what to prioritise (and where) is challenging.
A further challenge to integrated decision-making on land use is devolution, where forestry decision-making is under the remit of each of the four UK nations. This can mean different nations are making different aims as well as using different standards for tree planting. Andrew highlighted this with the example of tree planting on deep peat. Deep peat areas are extremely carbon rich, and planting trees on these leads to them drying out and carbon stocks eroding away. While it’s accepted that planting on deep peat to be prevented, different nations use different soil depths to classify deep peat. The UK Forestry Standard classifies this as peat soils reaching at least 50 cm depth, while the more recent Decision support framework for peatland protection puts this at 30 cm depth.
Many of us will be familiar with the phrase ‘right tree right place’ which emphasised selecting tree species and site conditions for optimal outcomes. Andrew proposed a revision to this mantra to think about ‘right place first’ and proposed a flow chart to structure decision-making. The flow chart starts with questioning whether the ‘place’ is appropriate for tree planting, i.e. whether it has existing carbon, nature, agricultural or community value that would be disrupted by tree planting. If the answer is no, then the question moves on to place-relevant reasons for tree planting, such as climate change mitigation, biodiversity, timber or recreational (amongst others). Once these reasons are established, tree species selection then becomes much more straight-forward. The process can also be supported by tools such as ESC (Ecological Site Classification tool), which can be used as a further species filter to make sure species selected are suitable to that land use, as well future predicted climate conditions. Andrew also recommended seeking out existing knowledge from local Chartered Foresters and aiming to maximise resilience of forests. Community engagement should also be a core component to incorporate local values into land-use decision-making.
To put the scale of decision-making into context, Andrew also highlighted that tree planting is the greatest driver of land use change in the UK. Trees are long-lived natural assets and therefore they require long-term and integrated thinking in order for them to achieve the benefits they were planted to deliver. It’s clear from both of these talks here that we can’t consider forest management decisions without considering the interlinkages with other land uses, community values and site suitability.
More information about our speakers
Pettorelli, N., Williams, J., Balzter, H., Behrens, P.A., Benton, T., Cowlishaw, G., Cruddas, P., Dicks, L.V., Garnett, T., Gould, M., King, J. & Webb, J. (2024): Prioritising Land Use in the Midst of a Climate and Nature Emergency – Ten Key Messages for Scientists, Civil Society, and Policy Makers. Zoological Society of London and British Ecological Society, London. https://issuu.com/zoologicalsocietyoflondon/docs/land_use_report
Coomes, D., Bowditch, E., Burton, V., Chamberlain, B., Donald, F., Egedusevic, M., FuentesMontemayor, E., Hall, J., Jones, A.G., Lines, E., Waring, B., Warner, E., Weatherall, A. (2021). Woodlands. In Stafford, R., Chamberlain, B., Clavey, L., Gillingham, P.K., McKain, S., Morecroft, M.D., Morrison-Bell, C. and Watts, O. (Eds.). Nature-based Solutions for Climate Change in the UK: A Report by the British Ecological Society. London, UK. https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/policy/uk/nature-based-solutions/
Weatherall, A. 2009. Food, wood or fuel? Where is the land for growing dedicated energy crops in the United Kingdom? Forestry Journal, 05/09, 26-27. https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/820/1/Food_wood_or_fuel.pdf
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