I use 100% renewable electricity and I help people join an utilities company which plants a tree in a UK forest for every customer who takes all their services. That's awesome!
Planting trees in a UK forest is such a scam I don't even know where to start.
UK forestry is almost all commercial in nature. That means it's a crop, and will be harvested in 30-150 years depending upon the type and intended use of the tree. So all the captured carbon will end up back in the air anyway when it's burnt for 'renewable' energy. Yes, if used for timber then it is stored for a longer period, but it all goes back in the air eventually. If you just cut it down and left it to rot the carbon would all be released just the same as burning it.
As a crop, timber is usually monoculture, especially softwoods. Nothing lives in a spruce plantation. It's a horrible, dark and lifeless place. Rows of trees, no light and a thick carpet of needles smothering anythign else. Worse than something like fields of oilseed rape for biodiversity- at least bees thrive on rape flowers.
So now you've convinced someone that they are doing good for the environment by kicking the can down the road, and adding to the souless plantation, we come to the real scam. Are you ready for it?
Foresty in the UK is governed by the Forestry Commission. It's a throwback to WW1, when the worry was that we would run out of timber. Essentially, forestry land is mandated to always be forest. If you apply for a felling licence to do the final clearfell (after multiple thinnings, it's a crop remember?), then consent is only granted once you have an approved replanting plan in place. If you try not to replant, the courts can force you to, and also add a charge to the land. So these trees have to be replanted by law anyhow. 'Why yes, Eco Energy Ltd, we'd love for you to pay for that row of the plantation!'
And the real kicker? Right in the bollocks? UK woodland is a huuuuge tax break for millionaires. For the landed gentry. For those with an Estate. That's a proper Estate, whereby folk used to doff their caps and mumble as the Lord walked down the street, lest he decided on a whim to evict them and their five wee'uns.
Timber prices are currently at an all time high. Any sale of standing timber (some poor contractor can take all the risk of harvesting and actually selling it) is tax exempt. That's not the best bit. There is no inheritance tax on woodland, and any capital gains liability is extinguised at death!
Wait. That's
still not the best bit. If his Lordship falls upon hard times, and is forced to sell a cottage or two to pay for repairs to the big house, he can simply roll over any capital gains liability into woodland, and his heirs will avoid paying any tax at all on that woodland as outlined above.
If you really want to make a difference, grow an acorn and do some guerilla gardening. His Lordship really doesn't need Eco Energy Ltd to pay the £3-4 cost of planting a tree whip , especially as the law compells him to replant anyway (and amply rewards him with tax breaks).
