On target to protect our woods

There are a number of new incentives aimed at encouraging people to plant more trees: grants, the supply of free trees, stakes and guards from organisations such as the Woodland Trust and, significantly, payments for carbon offsetting for the planting of new woodland.

Quite rightly, there is much discussion around the importance of planting the right trees in the right place. No one with sporting interests wants to cover a wildflower meadow with trees, nor destroy a grouse moor and the things that depend on its being by plastering it with a lot of conifers.

In lowland Britain, where most of the new planting will