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Scrap subsidies to Scotland’s conifer forests, urges report

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/29/conifer-forest-subsidies-tax-breaks-should-be-scrapped-report

Royal Society of Edinburgh says money should be spent on longer-living native forests with greater biodiversity benefits

Scrap subsidies to Scotland’s conifer forests, urges report

A report has called on ministers to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis.

The report from the Royal Society of Edinburgh said the tens of millions of pounds in subsidies given to the timber industry should instead be spent on longer-living native forests, which have greater and clearer climate and biodiversity benefits.

It said the Scottish and UK governments are wrong to argue that public subsidies are needed to help plant more, larger conifer forests. These plantations are largely monocultures using a single species that have a relatively short lifespan.

Instead, public subsidies should be diverted to planting millions of native broadleaf trees, including in urban areas, which capture and keep more CO2, support more plant and animal species, store more carbon in the soil, and have a far longer lifespan.

3 comments

YungOnions

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I've seen these vast scale conifer forests and they are little more than neatly ordered lines of the same tree. There's no diversity, no real undergrowth, nothing. They're more like someone just copy-pasted the same set of trees over several square miles and then called it a day. Oddly depressing places, actually. Ultimately these are still better than nothing, but we can absolutely do better via reallocation of funding.

prettybunnys

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They’re actually not better than nothing, they monoculture spruce forests effectively prevent wildlife from coming back and the farming of it prevents biodiversity.

It’s like a field of corn as far as benefit for the environment is concerned. It’s a benefit for lumber interests though

autotldr

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

A report has called on ministers to scrap the huge subsidies and tax breaks given to conifer forests because they do too little to combat the climate crisis.

It said the Scottish and UK governments are wrong to argue that public subsidies are needed to help plant more, larger conifer forests.

The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, which oversees policy and funding for England, set aside £222m between 2020 and 2024 for woodland on private land.

Scottish Forestry, the government agency, and Confor, the timber industry body, said there was clear evidence that conifers stored up to four times more carbon at a faster pace than slower-growing hardwood trees.

Confor said modern regulations already required conifer forests to be multipurpose, with a greater mix of species and more emphasis on eco-tourism.

The original article contains 663 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 74%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Jho

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