UK Forestry

The Present

This century has been a wonderful period for woodland owners. Standing timber sales at around £15 per tonne in 2010 may now achieve up to £60 per tonne. Meanwhile technological improvements in harvesting machinery provide cheaper and more effective harvesting whilst the new demand for "fuel wood" mean that the entire tree has become valuable and not just the main stem.

The Past

The UK is one of the least afforested nations of Europe with only 12% tree cover, by comparison with around 28% in France and Germany. As the instigator of the industrial revolution, timber cutting for charcoal devastated much of our woods. Following this, during the First World War, the huge demand for timber for trench warfare led to the cutting of around a third of what was left.

In 1919 the Forestry Commission was established to create a timber reserve, but the parlous state of the nation's finances after the Second World War led to the government encouraging tree planting by making it eligible for Schedule D tax relief against income earned from other sources. This led to a dramatic expansion of private forestry, especially in the marginal farmland areas of Scotland and Wales and continued until Tax relief was removed in the 1988 finance act.

Around 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) were established in this period, mostly with Sitka Spruce. This began to mature in the first decade of this new century, when the UK's timber self-sufficiency rose from 5% to 20%, resulting in £600 million of investment in timber processing capacity, and an industry now supporting 70,000 jobs, making a £2 billion annual contribution to the British economy.

The Future

Imminent changes in financial support for hill farming, plus pressure on governments to "lock up" carbon are both likely to favour the continued expansion of UK forestry.