Tree Planting

(asked on 1st July 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support her Department is providing to tree planting programmes to at least maintain the current level of carbon capture capacity from trees.


Answered by
 Portrait
Rory Stewart
This question was answered on 6th July 2015

As promised in our manifesto, we have committed to planting 11 million trees during this Parliament, which we plan to do primarily through the Rural Development Programme’s Countryside Stewardship scheme. This scheme aims to invest £18 million in new woodland planting each year. A number of other initiatives are also in place, including the Woodland Carbon Code, to attract other funding to ensure that planting rates are maintained at the average level over the previous Programme of 2,600 hectares per year. This will, according to the most recent greenhouse gas inventory projections, increase the amount of carbon removed by England’s woodlands from 5.0 million tonnes carbon dioxide in 2014 to 5.9 million tonnes in 2020.

We also remain strongly supportive of sector-led initiatives, such as Grown in Britain and the Roots to Prosperity strategy, in their work to develop and strengthen the woodland economy and thereby attract further private investment to help increase woodland creation capacity.

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