Planting can be short, medium, or long-term options that can generate new income for landowners through grants, stewardship schemes and carbon finance. Landowners can convert fields and margins into habitat areas or improvements can be made to fencing, hedging, and ditches that will benefit the land and watercourses.
Longer-term options include tree planting and forestry operations and woodland creation which will benefit the environment by creating new wildlife habitats as well as potential timber sales throughout this period and beyond.
In 2019 the Government launched a £50 million Woodland Carbon Guarantee scheme to encourage farmers and landowners in England to plant more trees and create new woodland in return for payments as the trees grow whilst helping to tackle climate change.
The scheme gives land managers the long-term financial income needed to invest in carbon sequestration – the process by which trees lock up and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Successful participants will be offered the option to sell Woodland Carbon Units to the government over 35 years at a guaranteed price set by auction, providing new income for land managers who help businesses compensate for their carbon emissions.
