Woodland Areas and Planting

This section contains information about the extent of woodland in the United Kingdom and compares the United Kingdom with other countries.

Area of woodland: 2005

The area of woodland in the UK at 31 March 2005 is 2.8 million hectares. Of this total, 1.3 million hectares (47%) is in Scotland, 1.1 million hectares (40%) is in England, 0.3 million hectares (10%) is in Wales and the remaining 0.1 million hectares (3%) is in Northern Ireland.

Source: Forestry Commission, Forest Service and the 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees.

1. Broadleaves include coppice and coppice with standards.
2. Non-FC woodland figures for England, Scotland and Wales are based on the 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (NIWT) and adjusted for new planting and sales of FC woodland, but at present no adjustment is made for woodland converted to another land-use. They include non-FC publicly owned woodland. The NIWT did not include Northern Ireland.

Area of woodland: changes over time

The information for Great Britain in Table 1.2 is taken from woodland censuses from 1905 onwards (not National Statistics). Most censuses, however, used slightly different definitions of woodland, so some of the changes in area are due to changing definitions. The principal differences are:

• 1905 Felled areas and scrub were not included.
• 1924 Undertaken by questionnaire; woods smaller than 2 acres (0.8 hectares) were not included.
• 1947 Woodlands with an area of less than 5 acres (2 hectares) were not included.
• 1965 Woodlands with an area of less than 1 acre (0.4 hectares) were not included.
• 1980 Woodlands with an area of less than 0.25 hectares were not included.
• 1995-99 Woodlands with an area of 0.1-2 hectares were included on a sample basis; some woodland missing from earlier surveys was included.

The information for Northern Ireland comes from a variety of sources.

The 2.8 million hectares of woodland in the UK represents 11.6% of the total land area, although this percentage ranges from 6.3% in Northern Ireland to 17.1% in Scotland.

Source: Forestry Commission and Forest Service.

1. Percentage of the total surface area including inland water. The total surface areas, including inland water, taken from the Annual Abstract of Statistics 2002 (published by the Office for National Statistics) are:
   

   United Kingdom	24 291 000 hectares
   England	13 042 000 hectares
   Scotland	7 813 000 hectares
   Wales	2 078 000 hectares
   Northern Ireland	1 358 000 hectares

2. Estimated from information in the Domesday Survey of England.
3. For Scotland, estimate for end of the Middle Ages from "Scottish Woodland History" (TC Smout ed, 1997), and estimate from Roy maps c1750.
4. For Northern Ireland, 17th century figure is estimate for all Ireland, 1905 figure is estimate for Ulster 1908, 1947 figure assumes no change from 1939-40 Census
5. Non-FC woodland figures for 2005 for England, Scotland and Wales are based on the 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (NIWT) and adjusted for new planting and sales of FC woodland, but at present no adjustment is made for woodland converted to another land-use.

The Forestry Commission/Forest Service owned or managed 30% of the total woodland area in the UK in 2005. However, this proportion ranged from 18% of the woodland area in England to 72% in Northern Ireland.

Source: Forestry Commission, Forest Service and 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees.

Land-use

Woodland accounted for 74% of all Forestry Commission/Forest Service land in the UK in 2004-05. This proportion was highest in Wales (87%) and lowest in Scotland (69%).

Source: Forestry Commission and Forest Service.

1. The definitions used by Forestry Commission and Forest Service have varied over time, so there are some small inconsistencies in the comparisons in Table 1.4.
2. 'Other land' includes agricultural land and areas of moorland and mountain.

National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (GB)

The following tables and charts present information for Great Britain, obtained from the 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

Table 1.5 shows that 44% of the GB woodland area in 1995-99 was personally owned. A further 35% was owned or managed by the Forestry Commission.

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

1. Excludes woods of less than 2 hectares

Over one half (53%) of the total woodland area in Great Britain is made up of conifers although this proportion ranges from 31% in England to 72% in Scotland.

Sitka spruce accounted for almost one half (49%) of the conifer area, followed by Scots pine (16%) and Lodgepole pine (10%). Amongst broadleaf species, Oak covered 23% of the broadleaf area, followed by Birch (16%) and Ash (13%).

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

1. Coppice includes coppice with standards.
2. Areas of integral open space, each less than 1 hectare.

Figure 1.1 Main tree species in GB

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

Two thirds of woodland area in Great Britain consists of trees planted after 1950. Conifers tend to have a shorter rotation, with 87% of conifers but just 39% of broadleaves planted after 1950.

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

1. Excluding felled, coppice and open space.
2. Age is determined from records where these are available. Where records were not available or were clearly inaccurate, age-class was assigned by reference to similar crops of known age in the locality.

Figure 1.2 Age profile of woodland in GB

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

There are estimated to be around 3814 million trees in Great Britain. The majority of these (56%) are in Scotland, with a further 34% in England and the remainder in Wales.

Source: 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees (not National Statistics).

Area of farm woodland

Agricultural Censuses run by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the devolved administrations collect annual information on the land-use of farms. The table below shows the area of woodland on farms.

The area of farm woodland in the UK has increased, from 439 thousand hectares in 1995 to 563 thousand hectares in 2004. Around one half (49%) of all farm woodland is in England, with a further 42% in Scotland, 7% in Wales and 1% in Northern Ireland.

Source: June Agricultural Census - Defra, SEERAD, WAG, DARDNI.

Figure 1.3 Area of farm woodland, 1981-2004

Source: June Agricultural Census - Defra, SEERAD, WAG, DARDNI.

Area of woodland: international comparisons

The forest areas in Table 1.10 are mostly estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) published in FAO's State of the World's Forests 2005 (not a National Statistics publication).

At 11.6% forest cover (in 2000), the UK is one of the least densely forested countries in Europe.

1. Cyprus is included in Europe above, but was included in Asia in the FAO publication.

The Forest Resources Assessment (FRA) is a collation of forest data undertaken by the UN FAO at the global level, and by UNECE for temperate and boreal regions. The information in Table 1.10 uses forest area from FRA 2000, excluding 'other wooded land'; for the UK, this is very similar to the definition of 'woodland' used in previous tables. The original sources for this table have varying dates, but have been updated using whatever information was available to FAO, to give an estimate of each country's forest resources in 2000. The UK figures were updated using emerging results from the 1995-99 National Inventory of Woodland and Trees.

Figure 1.4 Per cent woodland cover by country in Europe

Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 (not National Statistics)

New planting and restocking

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. The figures in this section are for all types of woodland.

Information about Forestry Commission and Forest Service new planting and restocking comes from administrative systems. Information about other woodland has come principally from the Woodland Grant Scheme (WGS) and (from 2003-04) the Scottish Forestry Grant Scheme (SFGS). For natural colonisation and regeneration, the areas are those for which the second instalment of grant has been paid. Areas receiving grant are allocated to years by date of payment. See Chapter 7 for more information from the WGS and SFGS.

Local estimates for areas of planting and restocking which are not FC and which are not grant-aided are included for England, Scotland and Wales. These estimates are relatively small (around 700 hectares in total in 2004-05), and it has been assumed that all of this area is broadleaves. It is assumed that there is no non-FS non-grant aided planting and restocking in Northern Ireland.

New planting and restocking figures for the year ending 31 March 2002 may have been affected by the Foot and Mouth Disease restrictions which were in force during the year.

The total area of new planting and restocking in the UK was 26.5 thousand hectares in 2004-2005. Restocking accounted for more than half of this total. Broadleaved species accounted for the majority (82%) of new planting but just 19% of the restocking area in 2004-05.

Source: Forestry Commission, Forest Service and Grant Schemes.

1. Figures for England in 2003-04 have been revised from Forestry Statistics 2004.

Almost all new planting (99% in 2004-05) takes place on non-FC/FS land. In contrast, most restocking occurs on FC/FS land (63%).

Source:Forestry Commission, Forest Service and Grant Schemes.

1. Figures for England in 2003-04 have been revised from Forestry Statistics 2004.

Figure 1.5 New planting in the UK, 1976-2005

Source: Forestry Commission, Forest Service and Grant Schemes.

Figure 1.6 Restocking in the UK, 1976-2005

Source: Forestry Commission, Forest Service and Grant Schemes.

NB: Figures in the tables are individually rounded, so the constituent items may not sum to the totals given.

Print this page  | Back to top ˆˆ