Taking the Guards Off Tree Planting

What’s happening where you live to regenerate the environmental damage we’ve inflicted?

Where I live, an area with below average tree – coverage the council is planting a tree for every resident; about 700,000 trees. The plan is to reach carbon – neutrality targets by 2030.

The planet is hotter than ever with an 1.2C – 1.3C increase on pre- industrial levels and the area is attempting a managed response to implement decarbonisation from negative – emissions forestry to capture carbon.  

Nationally in the U.K the plan is to increase national tree coverage from the current 13 per cent to 19 per cent by 2050 which the Woodland Trust says will involve planting more than 1.5 billion more trees.

Of course what happens here isn’t reflected across the world where approaches vary and are affected by local circumstance. Food scarcity and prices predict the actuality of implementation.

Here funding has been applied for from the Forestry Commission and the trees are sourced from the Woodland Trust that supplies packs of robust species suitable to the region.

Today it was reported there is to be a reduction in the use of the plastic sapling guards that protect against damage from animals and visitors.   The guards increase survival of trees substantially but the production is harmful increasing the manufacturing process of plastics.

For a tree to survive five years into maturity 1. 8 trees with guards are needed against two without. The guards are in use for five years after which there is around a 99 per cent chance of survival. As the guard is left to break down adding to pollution there are new methods being developed for protecting the saplings such as cardboard tubes and secondary shrubs like hawthorn and gorse.

The National Trust plans to plant 20 million new trees by 2030 and sustainable ways of ensuring its success aid areas of reforestation for future generations.