TreE_PlaNat

Project Summary:

Stakeholder perceptions and socio-ecological consequences of Treescape Expansion through Planting and Natural colonisation

Tree planting has been the most common woodland expansion strategy in the UK for many decades. Despite its many benefits, this approach is increasingly being questioned following overestimates of those benefits and challenges in scaling-up tree planting to the level needed to meet ambitious woodland expansion targets.

Consequently, there is growing interest in incorporating ‘natural colonisation’ (allowing trees to colonise new areas naturally) into woodland expansion strategies, partly because it is assumed that naturally created woodlands will be more structurally diverse, ecologically complex and resilient than planted sites.

Embracing natural colonisation as a complementary approach to tree planting has the potential to radically transform UK treescapes and unlock woodland expansion at scale. However, we know very little about the socio-ecological consequences of creating woodlands through natural colonisation. We also have a poor understanding of land managers’ attitudes towards woodland creation approaches other than tree planting, and it is not clear which kinds of land managers do, or would, engage with woodland creation through alternative approaches incorporating natural colonisation, and why.

This study will investigate a range of approaches to woodland expansion, including tree planting and allowing trees to colonise new areas naturally. Researchers will:

• Consider how to engage farmers and other land managers in natural woodland expansion on agricultural land.
• Build an understanding of the social and ecological consequences of natural woodland expansion, including the impact on biodiversity, people’s well-being, income generation, and resilience to climate change.
• Deliver a coordinated timetable of activities and outputs to demonstrate how tree planting and natural colonisation can be used in combination to scale-up woodland expansion for a range of objectives on agricultural land.