Henry Cheape (letter, Apr 21) highlights the importance of planting trees in the right place. With the government wedded to increasing planting to 30,000 hectares a year with trees by 2025, there are plenty of opportunities for expanding woodland cover that do not require the repurposing of land. We have estimated that planting a tree every 20 metres in English hedgerows would significantly meet the policy target without repurposing a single acre of land.
This is important because simply planting on our arable lands or the rough pastures and meadows of the hill fringe could result in significant disruption to the ecosystem balance in these habitats. These are of critical importance for red-listed species such as curlew, lapwing, redshank, snipe, grey partridge and black grouse. Planting more trees is important; so are our international biodiversity obligations.
Andrew Gilruth
Director of Communications