Badly-planned trees would increase greenhouse gas emissions, say the government’s advisers on the economic value of the natural environment. The report comes from the Natural Capital Committee (NCC), which says planting trees into peat bogs would prove a serious mistake. Peat locks up vast quantities of carbon – but trees dry out peat. This can release more greenhouse gases than the trees absorb.
The report adds that carpeting upland pastures with trees would reduce the UK’s ability to produce meat – which may lead to increasing imports from places that produce beef by felling rainforests. It also makes a similar point on industry. There’s no point closing dirty UK factories, the authors say, if we’re then going to import goods from places with worse emissions. The authors note that huge publicity has been given to the UK’s plans for planting 11 million trees to lock up carbon emissions, but they warn that conserving carbon in soils is equally or more important.
The report points out that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that in 2007 UK soils contained approximately 4,019 million tonnes of carbon (MtC), that’s 94.2% of the total stock of biological carbon – excluding fossil fuel carbon. They say soil degradation through erosion, intensive farming and development creates losses estimated at between £0.9 –1.4bn per year for England and Wales alone.
Source: BBC
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