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To: George Eustice
Boris Johnson: uphold your tree-planting pledge
The commitment to spend 27 billion on roads (Budget 2020) is out of step with current national sentiment and a fundamentally flawed proposal - even the AA president casts doubt on the wisdom of this expenditure (BBC 03/04/20).
The commitment to plant 30 million trees by 2025 (Conservative manifesto, 2019) to help toward the essential net zero emissions target must continue, and yet only 1,420 hectares have been successfully delivered against a target of 5,000 to March 2019.
That’s a shortfall of 71%.
Re-committing to reforestation will create the green jobs the economy and the environment desperately needs.
At this key environmental and societal juncture, just as we need green space more than ever, funds are being wasted - the cost of painting Boris Johnson’s plane (900K), is an equivalent 1.2 million trees.
Plant trees, not tarmac.
Why is this important?
This is a climate crisis.
The UK is one of the least wooded areas of Europe, with just 11.7% woodland cover compared to around 37% for the EU.*
Under the Conservatives' initiative - Nature for Climate fund - it said it would treble the tree-planting rate to cover 30,000 hectares (approximately 30 million trees) every year by the end of the next Parliament in 2025.
Not enough is being done.
Some major environmental benefits:
- Adapting to climate change and reducing its effects.
- Improvement of waterways and decrease in incidences of flooding
- Protection and conservation of our UK wildlife diversity, including protection of livestock.
Major economic benefits:
- Creation of green jobs - trees don’t plant and nurture themselves
- Decreased flooding risks mean reduced government spending
- Climate change damages economies: investing in the planting and management of trees will remove carbon dioxide and create a healthier, more productive society for all.
Plant trees, not tarmac.
*House of Lords European Union Committee, Sub-Committees (Environment and Agriculture) ‘Inquiry into the adaptation of agriculture and forestry to climate change: The EU policy response’
