New planting & restocking

Introduction

New planting is the creation of new areas of woodland. Restocking is the replanting of areas of woodland that have been felled. New planting can use planting/seeding or natural colonisation. Restocking can also use planting/seeding or natural regeneration.

Data sources and methodology

Information about Forestry Commission, Natural Resources Wales and Forest Service new planting and restocking comes from administrative systems. Information about other woodland has come principally from grant schemes, including the Countryside Stewardship in England, English Woodland Grant Scheme (EWGS), Glastir in Wales, Better Woodlands for Wales (BWW), Forestry Grant Scheme in Scotland, Rural Development Contracts in Scotland, Scottish Forestry Grant Scheme (SFGS) and Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS).

Areas receiving grant are allocated to years by date of payment. For natural colonisation and regeneration, the areas are generally those for which the second instalment of grant has been paid during the year. The second instalment is approved when woodland reaches a certain stage and density of growth, so this information corresponds approximately to the amount of new and restocked woodland created.

The coverage and level of grant support differ across schemes, so that figures on grant-aided planting are not directly comparable between countries or over time. Grant support for restocking of conifers changed with the introduction of Rural Development Contracts in Scotland in 2008. As a result, grant aid is no longer available for restocking with Sitka spruce in many cases. This will have led to a reduction in areas of private sector restocking that is grant-aided and therefore reported for Scotland.

New planting estimates for England also include areas supported by the Woodland Trust and (until 2014-15) areas funded under Natural England’s High Level Stewardship Scheme.

Local estimates for private sector areas of planting and restocking that are not grant aided were included for England, Wales and Scotland up to 2009-10, where possible. Estimates of non-grant aided planting and restocking were relatively small (less than one thousand hectares annually), and it has been assumed that all of this area is broadleaves. No estimates have been included for restocking of Sitka spruce in Scotland, or for restocking in England, that are no longer supported by grants. It is assumed that there is no private sector non-grant aided new planting and restocking in Northern Ireland.

The use of natural regeneration in non-clearfell systems is increasing substantially – particularly for broadleaves in England. These systems are not satisfactorily represented by measuring restocking area within any given year, and so broadleaf planting is likely to be under-reported in this release and other statistics.

Figures for Northern Ireland (Forest Service and private sector woodland) are provided by the Forest Service (www.daera-ni.gov.uk/topics/forestry).

Further information on administrative sources can be found at: www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-832ey5.

The methodology and outputs relevant to UK woodland area, planting and restocking were reviewed in 2014. The review report is available at mrwapr.pdf.

Revisions

Figures for 2015-16 are final; provisional figures were previously released in “Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking: 2016 Edition”.

Figures have not been revised from those provided in “Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking: 2016 Edition”. Information on revisions made since “Forestry Statistics 2015” are provided in “Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking: 2016 Edition”.

Information on significant revisions to published statistics is provided in the quality report on Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking, available from our Quality web page at www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-7zhk85.

The Forestry Commission’s revisions policy sets out how revisions and errors are dealt with and can be found at FCrevisions.pdf

Further information

Accompanying tables to this release, available at www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-7aqknx, provide longer time series data by country for new planting and restocking.

Figures for new planting are also used to compile the UK’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) sector, submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, http://unfccc.int/national_reports/annex_i_ghg_inventories/national_inventories_submissions/items/8812.php). Summary factsheets, produced by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, BEIS (previously the Department of Energy and Climate Change, DECC), are available at www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-greenhouse-gas-inventory-summary-factsheets.

Release schedule

New planting and restocking data are released twice a year. Provisional figures are published in Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking in early June. Final figures are released in Forestry Statistics at the end of September.

Provisional figures for new planting and restocking in 2016-17 will be published on 15 June 2017 in “Woodland Area, Planting and Restocking: 2017 Edition”.

Final results for new planting and restocking in 2016-17 will be published on 28 September 2017 in “Forestry Statistics 2017” and “Forestry Facts & Figures 2017”.