To counter Climate Change, Wales to plant 86 million trees by end of decade

Lee Waters, the Deputy Minister for Climate Change has issued the call-to-action as he admitted “we’re way behind where we need to be” on tree-planting targets. The Welsh government wants to plant as many as 86 million more trees by the end of the decade.

Waters said that he would change the process to make it easier to plant trees in some areas, to help meet the “massive challenge“. He also said that the target was “a huge stretch for all of us. Not in my lifetime have we planted enough trees”.

“All of us have a responsibility. Each family, if they have a garden, needs to be planting more trees in their garden. Local authorities, anybody who owns land, can be thinking where can we plant trees, because trees are good things,” Waters said.

While most would be planted in woodland areas, experts have urged the local authorities to prioritise tree retention and planting in urban areas too.

“We refer to them as the top trumps of green infrastructure,” said Mary Gagen, professor of geography at Swansea University.

From taking greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to reducing air pollution and supporting wildlife, Prof Gagen added some surprising things to her list.

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“We know that shoppers spend more money on streets that have large trees – not just trees, specifically large trees,” she said.

“We know that students concentrate on their work better if they can see trees out of their window,” she added.

According to reports, multiple research studies in cities in the US have concluded that trees can help the fight against urban crime. One found that for every 10% increase in tree canopy cover, there was a 15% decrease in violent crime.

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Back in Wales, schemes by the Woodland Trust and Keep Wales Tidy have provided trees for people in towns and cities to plant and look after.

While planting the right trees in the right place has been welcomed, they do not provide a like-for-like replacement for mature trees on the streets of Wales’ towns and cities, said Prof Gagen.

She has called for a change in planning rules to make it harder to chop them down.

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“They are not seen… as being quite the asset that they should be. They are not seen as being an essential service, for example, so you wouldn’t be allowed to just remove a post box,” she said.

“The post box is an essential service, there will be a greater level of planning discussion required in order to change that service, and we should really move to a position where we see large mature trees as an essential service as well.”