Seeing the wood for the trees: a National Forest for Wales?
In March 2008, Rory Francis of Coed Cadw (the Woodland Trust) was asked by the Western Mail to write an article on the Welsh Assembly Government's plans to create a new Welsh National Forest. Here is the article as it was submitted to the paper:
Could Wales be set to return to the days when, it is said, a squirrel could travel from one end of the valleys to the other without touching the ground? Could we see the restoration of the great native forests that Ywain Glyndwr and earlier Welsh Princes used to ambush their enemies?
One of the lesser noticed, but more intriguing commitments in the One Wales Agreement between Plaid Cymru and Labour as their programme for government, was the pledge to: “provide support for indigenous woodlands, including a tree for all new babies and adopted children, helping to create a Welsh National Forest of native trees to act as a carbon sink.”
But what will that mean in reality? There is certainly a strong case for creating more native woodland in Wales. After all, just 6% of Wales is native woodland; most of the woodland that we have is coniferous. As this year’s unnervingly early spring illustrates, climate change is creating an ever-more uncertain future for wildlife. As the world warms, it’s no longer good enough to protect a few designated areas for wildlife. We need to create wider, more resilient areas of wildlife-friendly habitats, where wildlife can adapt – and if necessary move across the landscape – in order to survive. And native woodland is a great example of this kind of wildlife-friendly habitat.
With obesity a growing problem and fears that young people are losing touch with the natural world, the more accessible native woodland for informal recreation that can be provided, the better, especially if this is near to where people live.
With fears over ever-rising energy prices, and timber prices possibly set to rise alongside them, there is much to be said for expanding the native woodlands of Wales as a commercial resource, and doing so sympathetically, working with the grain of the landscape.
As the One Wales agreement suggests, a National Forest could play a useful role as a carbon sink. But we need to recognise that we will never be able to plant sufficient trees in Wales to make up for all the fossil fuels we burn today. We need to do all we can to reduce our energy use through conservation measures, while developing renewable energy. The carbon captured by our trees should therefore be seen as an added bonus, rather than the main justification for a new native forest.
The new SNP Government in Edinburgh has an aspiration of achieving 25 per cent woodland cover in Scotland by the second half of this century and has referred to its desire to create 10,000 hectares of woodland a year in order to achieve this. However, this aspiration is not limited to native woodland. In comparison, Coed Cadw (the Woodland Trust in Wales) has suggested a target of increasing native woodland cover by two thirds over the next 30 years, from just 5.6% to 9.3%.
So how could a National Forest for Wales be created? One possibility would be to do it in the Valleys of south Wales. However, on the basis that the Forestry Commission Wales is already doing sterling work there, involving local communities in the management of their substantial land holding in the area, it’s not clear that this approach would add much to what is happening already. And how would a “National Forest” limited to the south Wales Valleys be truly “national”?
A more exciting and a more radical proposal would be to make the National Forest by expanding the network of native woodlands across Wales, extending like a ‘string of jewels’ from the north to the south of Wales, O Fôn i Fynwy (from Anglesey to Monmouthshire) as the Welsh expression goes, and indeed to the far west as well. This approach would allow the project to be much broader, allowing private landowners and conservation charities to take part as well as Forestry Commission Wales.
It would allow the benefits to be spread throughout Wales and, significantly, expand and connect woodlands across Wales – essential to enable our woodland wildlife to disperse, survive and evolve in the face of climate change.
The Assembly has already committed to a plan to plant a native tree for every child born or adopted in Wales. There is also the potential to restore broadleaf cover on the 25,000 hectares of ancient woodland that was planted with conifers during the last century. The native woodland created or restored as a result could become a crucial part of the new National Forest for Wales.
There is a risk that this sort of National Forest could be written off as a re-branding of what exists already. It would be vital, therefore, to insist that any woodland that was part of the National Forest should involve new projects to create and restore woodland that fulfils at least these two criteria:
• As it says in the One Wales agreement, it should be a forest of predominantly native trees, rather than conifers
• To be part of the National Forest, woodland should have open public access, so it really is an asset that can be enjoyed by the whole nation.
Beyond this, there should be a commitment to involve local communities in creating and developing the National Forest, as well as a real attempt to link the new National Forest with the history and culture of Wales.
A key element of the English National Forest in the East Midlands is ‘challenge funding’ to encourage landowners to come on board with imaginative projects. Here in Wales, landowners could be given incentives to bring their land into the Welsh National Forest through the Forestry Commission’s BWW grant scheme.
What will be the real long-term legacy of the Plaid Cymru/Labour coalition? Woodland and forestry is a long-term business. But, if it acts swiftly and with imagination, the Government has the potential to launch an initiative which could sustain the Welsh environment, improve the quality of life of its people and provide a sustainable, renewable resource, for years to come.
Rory Francis is public affairs officer for Coed Cadw (the Woodland Trust in Wales)
