Planting Trees for Carbon Offset Featured

Arts Council?

Local NFU office might have info?

Owain

Include a mixture of assorted food producing trees too, you'll be glad you did.

NT

How small are you talking?

Trees aren't very expensive. For e.g. 2-3ft ash trees you're talking about

A far greater expense is the time to plant them if you factor it in. It can be quite soothing once you get into a rhythm and forget you have 500 to go ...

By the way if the use of the field is currently agricultural strictly speaking you need change of use planning permission to forestry. You should also get an environmental impact assessment done if you have permanent pasture, and generally pay to keep about 100 public sector workers in jobs. Or just go ahead and do it anyway.

Finally, you should also have some idea what you want to get out of the wood and how you expect to manage it in the future. There's lots of good literature out there. I'd recommend these for starters.

- The Woodland Way, Ben Law

- BTCV Tree planting and aftercare

In message , Lawrence writes

Haven't you heard the rubbishing that carbon offsetting has had in the past few days, showing it up for the scam that it is

Have a look at the Woodland Trust site. There's a freebie if you allow public access or it is crossed by a footpath. 1ha minimum size but can be cumulative.

Arable land may comply with the requirements of DEFRA for the *arable reversion* scheme. Basically they fund the first five years, planting, Rabbit protection and initial management. I'm not up to date on this but look through the DEFRA site.

regards

In message , Piers Finlayson writes

Above an acre or so, permanent Rabbit fence is probably cheaper than individual spirals. Tilhill forestry did some planting here on an abandoned waste site and discovered that the Rabbits lifted the spirals to get at the bark:-) They came back and stapled the guards to canes. Ground mulch was pre-cut 1m square roofing felt.

:-) If you can show that the pasture (in grass for more than 5 years) has been *cultivated* which might amount to spraying or fertilising then you can escape the EIA requirement.

Ask the previous owner for a copy of his records.

Perhaps the OP is just wanting to cash in on the scam? I would if I could.

Ideas welcome :-)

"Nah mate, decking's so last year - what you want is a nice little rain forest out the back, plenty of shade ..."

Good people to ask are the CLA

They will know what grants are available.

Deer are more a problem. Rabbits don't eat bark really.

You can always plant a sacrificial crop of something rabbits DO like.

Planting is easy enough if you get a digger in, and sacks of peat or similar. Just gouge out a pattern of ditches, and backfill.

If bare root planting, I have even just shoved a spade in, made a slit and dropped trees into to that, then stamped hard..

BTW don't get big trees, They will sit there for a couole of years sulking till the roots get down properly.

Actually, its true.

Have you heard that the media sometimes don't tell the truth?

Personally, I would say that carbon offsetting is better than doing nothing. It is a small improvement, - to be added to lots of other small improvements designed to reduce our CO2 usage. It also helps high CO2 users to become aware of their own individual impact on the problem.

Perhaps you have a different view?

Carbon offsetting is there to allow you to *not* reduce your CO2 usage. You pay someone else to save it for you. Of course if that person wasn't going to use the carbon in the first place then there have been no savings at all. It really is a scam.

There are many different views on carbon offsetting. The view that should prevail is the one that says you should always look at what option gives the greatest *actual* overall carbon reduction per £ invested.

Offsetting rarely gives the best bang for the buck. That's because how the carbon reduction is defined is so open to abuse. The result is that the claimed reductions are rarely achieved.

I reckon this is what we should have been doing for years. All those waysides with stupid ornamental trees on...

Indeed, that's the recommended way and means bare rooted trees are far easier to plant than potted trees. I planted about 450 trees this way last winter, never having done it before and my loses have been at around 2%.

Deer and rabbits are both edible :-)

Owain

Never mind the carbon, planting trees (esp native species) has got to be a nice thing to do.

Owain

Well, I come at this from the POV that if someone is concerned enough to pay for carbon offsetting, at the very least, it helps the individual to acknowledge and accept that their CO2 usage is harmful. Eventually, that acceptance is more likely to lead to a net personal reduction. It's a hell of a lot better than the 'clarkson type' denial of the problem itself. And, a personal financial costing and charging for carbon usage is always more likely to force people to really concentrate on their part of the problem. That's all I'm saying.

Back to the subject though: Paying for someone to plant trees is one way you can choose to carbon-offset. That is not at all the same thing as paying someone not to use CO2. It's a way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Don't get too bogged-down with media-led rubbishing of offsetting.