COMPLICATIONS in applying for the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO) have been blamed for landowners “losing interest” in forestry.
During a parliamentary committee inquiry this month, Justin Mumford, a director of Nicholsons Lockhart Garratt, was asked by MPs about the difficulties faced by farmers and other stakeholders in getting funding to put trees in the ground.
READ MORE: Forestry minister wants to 'take chainsaw' to tree-planting time
Pointing to the “time-consuming process”, he said the government’s ongoing support remains “inadequate” to encourage landowners to plant trees. The UK didn't even plant half of its annual target of 30,000 hectares in the 12 months up to March 2022.
He told MPs: "As chartered foresters, we are able to provide that advice, but I won’t lie to you: it is very complex and it is a time-consuming process. That on its own can create time lags in submitting applications.
"... it is time consuming and we do find that momentum and morale is lost over that time, particularly with commodity prices on the land use alternatives, such as wheat, changing so rapidly.
"We had a lot of landowners very interested in tree planting coming out of last winter into the spring, but as soon as wheat prices started to reach the heady heights of £350 a tonne, landowners immediately started, understandably, to lose interest. A quicker, more succinct administration process for those grants would be very important.
"The second point would be that we need to remember that when a landowner plants trees, he loses the ability to generate income from that for the first 20 years of that woodland’s life, and that is a huge difference in comparison to his arable crop.
"Ongoing support, although it has been greatly improved this year, is still probably inadequate to encourage landowners financially to plant trees as an opportunity cost against other plants."
The Environment Audit Committee (EAC) inquiry on Sustainable Timber and Deforestation saw Justin joined by Ben Goh, commercial manager at Maelor Forest Nurseries, Timber Development UK's David Hopkin and Graham Clark of the Country Land and Business Association.
In a wide-ranging meeting, other topics included:
- How to reduce the UK's reliance on importing hardwoods from Scandinavia
- How best to make the most of the UK's land
- How best to manage the nation's woodland deer
- The UK's mix of conifer and broadleaves
Of the reliance on imported timber - the UK is the world's second-largest net importer in the world, with 80 per cent of its wood coming from abroad - David said: "We don’t have enough timber to meet demand in this country.
"People will buy from the best available source and they have a lot of different options.
"Scandinavia has a very good and long-established industry there in forestry, the growing, the quality of the species that come through, the quality of the product that comes through and the ease of shipping on to the east coast here; it is just straight across."
Previously, it had been announced the EWCO, which was only launched in 2021, will become part of the Local Nature Recovery scheme – one of the new environmental land management (ELM) schemes – from 2025.
Full minutes from the meeting can be viewed here.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here