This data-file reviews 25 examples of forestation projects in the United Kingdom, which have followed the UK Woodland Carbon Code.
Our conclusion is that the projects are high-quality. They are largely ‘incremental’ in the sense that most are situated on abandoned or marginal grazing land. They are conservative, mostly placing c20% of expected CO2 credits into a buffer account.
Many also cite co-benefits providing habitats for wildlife (in some cases, plans are quite detailed), recreational enjoyment, tourism, intercepting flood-water and creating employment.
Our conclusion remains that you have to somewhat ‘hate nature’ to not want more reforestation projects like these on a sensible roadmap to net zero.
Another key to the data-file is to plot the typical distribution of parameters such as project size, CO2 uptake (per acre), intended life-span, species diversity, prior land use, intended use of wood, buffer reserves and other forestry practices (charts below).
