Urban Forestry - Facts & Statistics

•There are over 40 million hectares of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified forest and woodland in 59 countries world wide. In the UK we have over 1.1 million hectares of FSC certified forest.

•There are more forests and woodlands in the UK now than for a long time. Woodland area has been steadily increasing since 1920, just after the Forestry Commission was set up. There are now 2.807 million hectares of woodlands in the UK, or 11.6% of the land area. Despite more than doubling tree cover in the last 100 years this is still less than all our European partners except the Netherlands and Eire.

•Forests in other European and other developed countries are also expanding, but forests in many tropical countries are still shrinking due to conversion to agriculture, cattle ranches or plantation crops like oil palm. Political instability, war and conflicts give opportunities for illegal exploitation of tropical forests. Loss of tropical forests is especially serious as they contain more types of plants and animal than any other ecosystem on land.

•There are almost certainly no natural woodlands in the UK. All have been affected and managed by people, often for thousands of years. Ancient semi-natural woodlands (ASNW) are woods that have existed on a site since 1600 or earlier. Some are much older and may be direct descendents of the original wildwood. ASNWs contain a rich diversity of woodland plants and animals and maintaining them is vital for biodiversity conservation.

•Coppicing, the periodic cutting of trees to ground level to produce small sized poles, is an ancient art. timber recovered from bronze age roadways in Somerset indicate it came from a coppiced woodland. Coppicing rejuvenates trees too and allows them to live longer than normal. Some coppiced ash trees are estimated to be over 800 years old.

•Coppicing is good for butterflies and other plants and wildlife. The Forestry Commission’s recent Coppice Challenge showed that re-starting resulted in a rapid increase in the species and number of butterflies. Continued coppicing in an area reinforces these benefits for biodiversity.

•In the UK we burn between 45,000 and 55,000 tonnes of charcoal each year on our barbeques, depending on the summer weather. Yet the Forestry Commission estimates that only 5,000 tonnes a year of charcoal is made here.

•Charcoal imported to the UK comes may have travelled 12,000 miles or more to get to your barbeque. Most comes from South Africa, Brazil and Nigeria. BioRegional aim to have local charcoal made within 30 miles from where it is sold.

•London produces almost 100,000 tonnes a year of tree waste (estimates vary between 54,000 upwards). If it were all used in combined heat and power plants (CHPs) around 10MW of electricity could be generated along with useful heat. That’s enough power and heat for 22,000 homes . There are also other sources of waste wood which could be used as fuel. Other urban areas around the UK produce similar quantities of tree waste which could be used as fuel.

Last updated 14th January 2008