Water UK urges government to act over tree planting

The trade body for the water sector has called on the government to introduce targets for tree planting across the country.

Water UK and Friends of the Earth have written to Zac Goldsmith, minister of state for Pacific and the environment, asking him to use the England Tree Strategy to set a target to double the country’s cover.

The strategy, due to be published later this year, will set out the government’s forestry policy until 2050 and aims to ensure that trees are established and managed to deliver multiple benefits for people and the environment.

The letter sets out a number of steps the government could take, including:

• Providing an income to landowners who plant trees on farmland at an attractive rate for uptake
• Changing the presumption not to plant trees in national parks, and allow for natural regeneration in the uplands
• Investing in nurseries and growing the native tree supply line in the UK
• Ensuring a step change over the short term by directly funding planting costs to generate an increase in tree planting this autumn

Water companies in England have already committed to planting 11 million trees by 2030 as part of a wider pledge to improve the natural environment.

The letter, from Water UK Christine McGourty, and her counterparts at Friends of the Earth, says: “We welcome the recent consultation on the draft England Tree Strategy, but without any targets for increasing tree cover in England we do not believe it will deliver the changes necessary in a time of climate and ecological emergency.

“The measures proposed would only increase England’s woodland cover from 10 per cent today to just 12 per cent by 2050 –  we can and must do better.

“Well-managed trees and woods should be a vital part of a green recovery postcoronavirus, creating new jobs in conservation and forestry, plus giving more people access to thriving nature.”