Seeing the woods for the trees

TREES form the background to our lives, enriching and beautifying the landscape in towns and country alike and providing quantifiable benefits to wellbeing and social cohesion. Alone or together as woods, they provide habitat for complex ecosystems, ameliorate microclimates, slow the flow of rainfall and capture pollutants, as well as being the source of wood for timber and fuel. Wood is the consequence of perhaps the most important function of trees, the capturing of large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere, releasing oxygen in exchange.

During the December 2019 General Election campaign, all political parties made great claims about the numbers they wanted to see planted: 30 million per year for a five-year term for the Conservatives; 60 million each year until 2045 for the Liberal Democrats. Labour pledged an