Forestry Commission invites farmers and land manages to bid for funding support to create new woodlands to help tackle the effects of climate change
The government has this week launched the latest £10m phase of its £50m Woodland Carbon Guarantee programme, calling on farmers and land managers to bid for funding to support new woodland tree-planting programmes
Under the scheme, which is intended to act as a fore-runner for the government's wider agricultural subsidy reforms, land managers can bid for the option to sell Woodland Carbon Units to the government at a guaranteed price which is protected against inflation for 35 years.
The second £10m auction round for the scheme is set to take place on June 8th and interested parties have until June 5th to qualify, although the government said it would keep the deadline under review given the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest announcement follows the success of the first auction, which closed in February and saw 18 contracts offered by the Forestry Commission that are set to help stimulate the creation of 182 hectares of new woodland. A series of auctions are now slated to take place every six months for up to five years.
"The Woodland Carbon Guarantee is the first scheme of its kind to provide land managers with long-term certainty of a guaranteed payment rate for carbon, which their trees lock up and store," said Sir William Worsley, Chair of the Forestry Commission. "I'm excited to announce that the first auction has successfully encouraged projects in parts of the country where new planting has been lower in recent years, and across a good range of woodland types."
He added that there was "no reason to delay applying" and urged "all land managers thinking about planting to sign up ahead of the second auction in June".
Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith said the scheme should also help boost the emerging domestic carbon market, which has seen a growing number of corporates fund tree-planting programmes in order to help offset their carbon emissions.
"Trees are a precious natural asset and, as a natural carbon sink, are a vital part of the fight against climate change," he said. "In addition to providing long-term income support to land managers for creating new woodland, it is our hope that this Guarantee will play an important role in developing the domestic carbon market."
The funding builds on the government's manifesto pledge to increase planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025. It is also set to be followed by a new English Tree Strategy, which will be consulted on this Spring, as well as the government's wider agricultural subsidy reforms to ensure land owners are paid to deliver ecosystem services.