[growlist]

Can't come quickly enough in the UK as we have a significantly lower percentage of tree cover compared to Europe, and I love forests dearly. It was said that after WW1 there was barely a tree left standing in the country, and we've never recovered. It pains me that the average Brit seems to think a green field is nature, whereas many are virtual deserts in terms of biodiversity. I'm just hoping we get a decent mix of trees as part of this planting and that it is not subverted by commercial interests into massive monoculture plantations as was the case in Scotland.

[senorjazz]

I often rant about this, when people from home bemoan about tropical deforestation (which is of course terrible) and go on about how "they" are destroying the planet. When asking what they are doing about the problem closer to home they look at me like I am crazy.

Where are the protests to confiscate arable land for reforestation in the UK. Where is the public will to pay a higher % for food due to less arable land. Where is the willingness to accept a lower standard of living (in the short term at least) due to reforestation of the UK. All of which they expect of 3rd world countries, but not for their home country.

The above is never going to happen, but I often wonder whether instead of hegerows around the patchwork of fields we have in the UK it is mandated to be 2-3 trees thick. Sure some land would be lost, but not much and as anyone who has flown into the UK, a huge % of the country is a patchwork of fields, that should be a significant number of new tree planting

[NeedMoreTea]

Course the traditional laid hedgerows usually had trees spaced along them as well, sometimes quite closely. The best country lanes are those with traditional hedges either side, where the trees have met to create a green shaded tunnel. They brought in some regulations around hedgerows not too long ago, but it seemed like too little, far too late. Limiting field size seems overdue too given how much they've changed, even over my lifetime.

Coming from the north of England, I'm often struck when I get to Scotland or down south just how extra sparse trees seem across the north.

I would dearly love to see progress to reforest the UK.

[radicalbyte]

Same here. The place where I grew up in Devon was beautiful, loads of trees and farmland. Only it was all flattened 25 years ago and replace with big ugly houses.

[m0nty]

> think a green field is nature

I see these areas basically as factories, albeit we do have the kind of food security our ancestors could only dream of. Would be fantastic to see more forested areas and associated 're-wilding' projects. Could be hugely beneficial in so many ways if only people can take the long view.

[tim333]

Green fields are of course a kind of nature. It's interesting that the kind of natural environment humans seem to find pleasant - fields with some trees, animals and some water are quite similar to parts of Africa we evolved in eg. the Serengeti here: https://media.gadventures.com/media-server/cache/19/56/19567...

The woods in England where I grew up were more like this https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/media/100142120/flooded-woo... - damp crowded, muddy and not that pleasant to hang out in for any length of time. I think our parks are to some extent a way to make things look more like Africa. (eg Hyde Park here https://www.kidrated.com/kidrated/wp-content/uploads/2015/04...)

[tigerlily]

You may be looking for Capability Brown.

[jonnycomputer]

Are you from Fenland?

[tim333]

Ah no, Herts. The woods are not all like that.

[mgoetzke]

There was a map of France and England once which showed relative age of forests compared to e.g. Germany, which correlated with ship manufacturing (wooden of course) which Germany (did not really exist then anyway) did not participate in at the time.

[legulere]

Thick forests everywhere also aren’t nature. Today’s wild animals and the megafauna we made go extinct usually pretty well kept the land open.

[senorjazz]

No not everywhere, but as the parent comment is talking about the Britain, the natural state of the UK before human intervention was a heavily (perhaps not densely - I don't know) forested island

[thinkingemote]

That's not really the case. It was a widely held belief or myth that the British isles were covered in dense forest. The coverage was at most about 60% and also that humans have always been intervening in the landscape and they arrived very soon after the glaciers retreated up north. Most of the woodlands were managed or occupied and there were not many places which didn't see the human touch (in Britain) compared with other places in the world.

In part the myth of the virgin untouched forest comes from colonial views of natives existing in harmony or as part of nature and not really human. Even in the US, Native Americans have been managing the "wilderness" for thousands of years before the US Forest Service.

[jessaustin]

Not sure about the environment of the British Isles, but that of North America is not and was not a monolith. Sure natives in some areas were burning some vegetation, but that didn't happen everywhere. Actually in some areas the burning was only of undergrowth, so that it actually made the canopy more dense than it would have been without burning.

[kieranmaine]

Any idea which UK charities would be the best to contribute to to get tree coverage up as quickly as possible? I've looked at the woodland trust, but equally I'm thinking that in terms of reducing CO2 my money might be more effective being deployed in another country.

[gbuk2013]

The National Forest is one such organisation.

https://www.nationalforest.org/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Forest_(England...

[mattlondon]

Yeah I have struggled with this in the past. I would gladly pay to go and plant trees somewhere within a couple of hours of where I live, but I could not find many easy ways to do this as an individual in the UK (unless you are a kid under 11 years old where there seems to be a lot of options!). I donate to Woodland Trust, but they seem to be more about maintaining what we have & small-scale replenishing rather than more large-scale replanting.

Most recently I've been trying to offset 10 tonnes a year via these people: https://www.carbonfootprint.com/carbonoffset.html They were the only people I could find most recently that sold "personal carbon offsets" in the UK which includes UK-based tree planting (as well as options for elsewhere)

[arethuza]

There is Trees for Life in Scotland:

https://treesforlife.org.uk/

Edit: Most of the Scottish Highlands are a particularly bizarre landscape that people generally think of as natural but is really rather artificial as deer, lacking natural predators and being popular for hunting, tend to eat young trees.

[mrec]

Bit like Dartmoor - looks spectacularly wild and romantic, but used to be forested until Bronze Age farmers cleared it for agriculture and the soil turned acidic.

[desas]

The Lakes and the Peaks are in the same boat too, probably the other national parks.

[radicalbyte]

It would be fantastic if it could be re-planted with trees.

[growlist]

I wish I had enough cash to purchase a chunk of pasture and reforest it, but everywhere in the SE is stupidly expensive I think. Possibly moving up north soon, so I may well purchase an acre of two if I can. I'd want to be near enough to be able to keep an eye on it.

[markvdb]

[...]in the UK as we have a significantly lower percentage of tree cover compared to Europe,[...]

Please use "...compared to _the rest of_ Europe" next time. That stresses the very real commonalities between European countries. Civilised people using inclusive language are our only hope for a brexit process without too much bruising. Little things like this can really help.

I apologise for injecting that completely off topic remark into this conversation and will shut up now. I probably deserve some karma burning, just not too much please.

P.S. Thank you for you comment about tree cover and the world wars in the UK. I just read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom with great interest.