Money for the right trees and place is the key message in a report that urges that public money should be spent on native forests with greater biodiversity benefits.
Just how much money is spent in support for woodlands and is the money well spent? After all public money has been supporting woodlands for over 100 years starting just after 1918 when the Forestry Commission was set up. Since then publicly funded grants have been given to private landowners to support a range of activities supported by government tax reliefs.
An inquiry into public financing for tree planting and forestry published earlier this year by the Royal Society of Edinburgh has called on ministers in Edinburgh and Westminster to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis.
Their report claims that the tens of millions of pounds in subsidies given to the timber industry should instead be spent on longer-living native forests, which have greater and clearer climate and biodiversity benefits – spending money on the right trees and place. It said the Scottish and UK governments are wrong to argue that public subsidies are needed to help plant more, larger conifer forests. These plantations are largely monocultures using a single species that have a relatively short lifespan. Instead, public subsidies should be diverted to planting millions of native broadleaf trees, including in urban areas, which capture and keep more CO 2, support more plant and animal species, store more carbon in the soil, and have a far longer lifespan.
The introduction to the report points out that at present, public financial support for woodlands comprises a range of grants as well as 100% tax relief on both profits and capital gains. Recently, landowners have been able to generate additional income by selling carbon credits for buyers to offset their own carbon production (para 18). It makes 16 recommendations, mainly aimed at the Scottish government, although it calls on the UK government to ‘calculate and report on the total cost of tax reliefs for woodlands, stating the purpose of the reliefs and evaluating them in respect of their cost effectiveness in meeting those objectives’.
The Guardian reported (29 February) that Prof Ian Wall, who chaired the RSE’s inquiry, said: “The role of trees – the right trees in the right place – in improving biodiversity, carbon-capture, and wellbeing in both urban and rural environments cannot be overstated.” Scottish Forestry, the government agency, and Confor, the timber industry body, said there was clear evidence that conifers stored up to four times more carbon at a faster pace than slower-growing hardwood trees. The timber industry in Scotland supported 20,000 jobs and generated £800m for the economy.
A Treasury spokesperson confirmed to The Guardian that forestry enjoyed tax relief and exemptions, and said: “We are committed to keeping the tax system simple by not introducing different tax-treatments for all the different types of tree in the UK.”
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