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Our strategy

Our vision is optimistic: a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature. Find out how we plan to achieve this over the next decade.

Credit: Richard Becker / WTML

Our vision and goals

A world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature.

Our journey to 2030 is ambitious. It focuses on the role that trees and woods play in tackling the threats of climate change and nature loss. Our vision is delivered through our goals to protect, restore and create the UK's woodland.

Protect

We protect ancient, veteran and valuable woods and trees, to stop the loss of irreplaceable habitat and carbon stores and preserve our natural heritage.

Through our protection goal we will...

  • Fully map all the UK's ancient woods and survey the UK for ancient and veteran trees. Currently, we estimate that only 10% of ancient trees are mapped.
  • Fight the challenging combination of pressures that native trees and woods face.
  • Scale up the supply chain and demand for seed and trees sourced and grown in the UK to reduce the risk to existing trees and woods from pests and diseases.
  • Expand woodland through natural regeneration and tree planting. We focus on areas that bring the best biodiversity benefits, connecting and buffering ancient woodland and other habitats.
  • Secure important wooded habitats that are at risk.

Restore

We restore the ecological condition of existing native woods and trees, increasing landscape resilience and creating conditions for nature and people to thrive.

Through our restoration goal we will...

  • Treble the area of native woodland that's in favourable ecological condition.
  • Influence policy that delivers restoration of the UK's ancient woods that have been damaged over the last century.
  • Ensure all known ancient and veteran trees on our estate and within the wider landscapes are prioritised for care and management.
  • Use our evidence and expertise to develop best practice guidance and training on woodland restoration.
  • Lead on understanding and tracking the ecological condition of the UK's native woods and trees.

Create

We create quality native woods and get native trees growing to benefit nature, climate and people into the future.

Through our creation goal we will...

  • Establish 60,000ha of native woodland which equates to an estimated 100 million trees.
  • Plant 10 million trees outside of woodlands.
  • Increase average urban tree cover from 16% to 20%.
  • Influence governments to set and stick to ambitious woodland creation targets.
  • Work with others to deliver quality woodland creation at a landscape scale that adopts our woodland creation guidance as best practice.

Find out more about our work