Native Forestry

Native News Mar 2010

Having started our business in the autumn of 2005, Native Forestry has recently completed our fifth tree planting season, and so thought it was a good time to reflect on the work we have carried out during the first five winters.  I have also put the amount of work we have managed to complete into context by considering the damage that has been inflicted on our most important terrestrial habitats, the tropical rainforests, during this same period of time.  On the positive side, I have calculated the approximate amount of carbon dioxide that will be absorbed by the trees we have so far planted, and what that means in terms of offsetting man-made carbon dioxide emissions.

Throughout the last five tree planting seasons Emma and I have personally hand-planted more than 156,000 native trees and shrubs.  This equates to 69.33 hectares of woodland, assuming that the average number of trees per hectare is 2,250 (a standard planting density often used in tree planting schemes in Britain).

Whilst we are proud of our achievements, it is sobering to think that in the same time period, an area of ~750,000 square kilometres of tropical rainforest (an area the size of England and Wales every year) has been destroyed.  If this area of land contained the same number of trees (2,250 per hectare), the number of trees lost in this time would be 168.75 billion, or for every one tree we planted, 1,081,730 were destroyed!

The creation of new woodlands and forests for the purpose of offsetting man-made carbon dioxide emissions is a controversial issue for several reasons.  If the trees are not planted as part of a long-term, sustainable forestry strategy, the new trees themselves could end up being destroyed as part of further changes in land use, which then turns a carbon sink into a source of carbon dioxide emissions.  The establishment of fast-growing non-native tree species that become invasive and damage the natural ecosystem is also an issue of concern.  In our case, we only plant native tree and shrub species, the vast majority of which are also part of long-term and sustainable grant-funded forestry schemes.

Assuming that for every cubic metre of timber growth, 1 tonne (1000kg) of carbon dioxide is sequestered and the yield class (cubic metres of timber produced per hectare per year) is 6, after 100 years of growth, the 69.33 hectares of woodland will produce ~41,600 cubic metres of timber and therefore lock up 41.6 million kilograms of carbon dioxide.  In terms of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, this amount of carbon dioxide is produced from ~166.4 million passenger miles on short-haul plane flights.  As an example, our tree planting work so far has offset the first 36 miles of every passenger handled by the nearby East Midlands Airport in 2009!

• Why go native?
• Case Studies: Native Projects
• Our Newsletter