8th December 2023
Planting what grows best
Trees, peat bogs, and seaweed forests all absorb and store carbon. Trees provide shade from the sun and protection from the wind and heavy rain. Trees and peat bogs slow the flow of water and prevent flooding. Seaweed forests and mangroves protect the sea bed and vulnerable shore lines. Cutting down trees and clearing forests, and draining bogs and wetlands released carbon and exposes the land to degradation.
“The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) …advice on the sixth bin budget , covering 2033-2037, estimates that woodland cover in the UK would increase to 17% by 2050 if the Government meets its target of planting 30,000 hectares of trees annually from 2025. The Committee suggest it would be feasible to increase planting to 30,000 – 70,000 hectares of trees from 2035, leading to an increased woodland cover of up to 20%” (1) Woodland cover is currently around 13%.
The Wetlands and Wildlife Trust aims “to bring back some of these vital habitats, calling for the creation and restoration of 100,000 hectares of healthy, well-managed wetlands across the nation.” (2)
“A study earlier this year [2021] concluded that 92% of the UK’s seagrass has been lost in the past two centuries, with 39% disappearing just since the 1980s, thanks to pollution from industry, mining and farming, along with dredging, bottom trawling and coastal development…. A consortium, including Project Seagrass, WWF and Swansea University, has planting more than 750,000 seagrass seeds in Dale Bay in Pembrokeshire, with the aim of eventually restoring 3,000 hectares (12 sq miles) of meadows in the UK by 2030. That area of seagrass could suck up the emissions of 3,000 small cars, create a habitat for billions of small animals, support 4,700 more fish than bare sediment, and increase sediment strength tenfold to prevent erosion.” (3)
(1) https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9084/CBP-9084.pdf
(2) ) https://www.wwt.org.uk/news-and-stories/news/the-state-of-global-wetlands-in-2021-new-report
The Green Tau 