As UK Government Pushes Tree-Planting Panacea, Nurseries Running Out, Labor In Short Supply (Brexit)
Pledges to plant trees fall from politicians’ lips like leaves in the autumn, especially during elections and climate summits. Yet ambitious government planting targets are likely to be missed because there are not enough trees or people to plant them, leading forestry figures have warned. Booming demand means that nurseries are already running out of trees, barely weeks into the planting season, according to the Horticultural Trades Association. And a shortage of workers needed to grow, replant and nurture healthy trees has been made worse by Brexit and under-investment in workforce training, according to the Institute of Chartered Foresters (ICF).
George Eustice, the environment secretary, announced in May that the government planned to treble tree planting in England to meet a UK-wide target of 30,000 hectares (74,100 acres) a year by 2024 – the equivalent of at least 90 million trees. The 2019 manifesto pledge was barely half what most other parties wanted, and trees are a vital part of the global response to the climate crisis, but Confor, which represents the UK’s forestry industry, said the government was undermining that target by making it too hard for landowners in England to gain approval for tree-planting schemes.
While Scotland is well-placed to meet its target to deliver 18,000 hectares, the Welsh government has only recently grasped the scale of the commitment needed, Stuart Goodall, Confor’s chief executive, said. “With England, what’s been very frustrating for me is that the government is not throwing the kitchen sink at this. It’s not learnt lessons from elsewhere where there has been progress in planting, such as in Scotland, and is trying to deliver types of tree planting that is too narrowly drawn and thereby is undermining its ability to achieve its targets.”
Several schemes are in operation as part of the £640m Nature for Climate Fund, including the Urban Tree Challenge Fund, which aims to plant 134,000 trees in English cities. The scheme has been delayed in some metropolitan local authorities, which have been unable to buy saplings because the necessary funds have not been released. The Forestry Commission said it had received 45 applications and was working through them. If the money is not released by the fund soon, there may be few trees left to plant. Coles Nurseries is one of England’s largest tree nurseries, growing 250,000 saplings and young trees a year in the east Midlands, mostly for local authorities and construction firms. Vince Edwards, the company’s customer development manager, said it was already running short of some stock less than a month into the tree season. “Trees are selling out very, very quickly,” he said.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/31/how-can-we-grow-new-forests-if-we-dont-have-enough-trees-to-plant
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