Great Britain creates the new Northern Forest, 50 million trees to be planted

Environment · Lorenzo Brenna · 2018-01-19

Great Britain will plant the trees over the next 25 years along the 172-kilometre motorway connecting Liverpool to Hull.

Great Britain was once covered in deciduous forests characterised by colossal oak trees. Following the industrial revolution, however, the land underwent a violent process of urbanisation, and of the original forests barely any remain today except for small, circumscribed areas covering less than 11 per cent of the national territory. While it is impossible to turn back the clock, it is possible to try to remedy past mistakes, and that is precisely what the British government intends to do: it has announced the planting of 50 million trees that will form a new Northern Forest.

Pini visti dal basso — The creation of the new forest will offer a better environment for citizens, improving air quality, mitigating the risk of hydrogeological instability, supporting the rural economy through tourism and timber production, and ultimately helping to connect people with nature © Casey Horner/Unsplash

A forest for the climate and biodiversity

The forest will run alongside the 172-kilometre M62 motorway connecting Liverpool to Hull and will encompass several major cities including Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Chester. The project is led by Woodland Trust, an organisation dedicated to woodland conservation in the United Kingdom, and its aim is to provide a new habitat for wildlife, reduce the risk of flooding and combat climate change. According to Woodland Trust, the new woodland will be capable of absorbing approximately eight million tonnes of carbon.

Investing in forests

For the realisation of the project, which will be completed within twenty-five years, £5.7 million has currently been invested, with the overall cost expected to reach £500 million. This is therefore a truly significant investment that will nonetheless yield numerous positive outcomes. Beyond the strictly climate and environmental perspective, the forest will also help to support the local economy through tourism, employment and the increase in value of the approximately 190,000 homes situated in the area concerned.

The United Kingdom needs to make up ground

Tree-planting work on the forest will begin in March with the reforestation of 680 hectares in the Smithills suburb of Bolton. The initiative will help the government move closer to its target of increasing national woodland cover by 12 per cent in order to contribute to achieving climate emissions reduction goals. That target remains a very long way off, however, and Woodland Trust maintains that in 2016 only 700 hectares were reforested in England, well below the national target of 5,000 hectares per year.

Tratto dell'autostrada che collega Liverpool a Hull — The current view from the M62 motorway is rather bleak. The United Kingdom is one of the European countries with the least forest cover: only 10 per cent of England is covered by woodland, compared with 34.7 per cent of Italy © Bob Smith/grough

A forest that grows from the ground up

For over ten years the Woodland Trust and Community Forest Trust organisations have been campaigning for the realisation of this project, which therefore "is not a government initiative, it is a bottom-up initiative. It is an idea that stems from the experience and enthusiasm of organisations that have been working for years with communities and the environment," wrote Austin Brady, Director of Conservation and External Affairs at Woodland Trust.