Woodland planting carbon offset

Sacha

New Member
I have searched for this information but cant find a definitive answer. Is the minimum amount of land you can set aside for woodland creation and to 'earn' carbon credits 10ha? Is there any point looking at a planting scheme if you cant spare 10ha (all permanent pasture and not a massive amount of land so 10ha would be a significant chunk and would impact the amount of stock I can run)
 

N.Yorks.

Member
Thank you @N.Yorks. that is exactly what I was looking for!
The pain in the arse is the registration and verification cost...... if you're just doing one small lump the costs start to be prohibitive, but if youy can lump in other projects thatr are local and register them all together but as seperate blocks it's far better.

I'm considering doing one in Yorkshire if you're in that area?
 

delilah

Member
Am I understanding this correctly ?
Someone will give you money to turn PP into woodland, in the form of 'carbon credits' ?
Why ? PP is a better carbon store than woodland.
Who is handing this money over ? Private business ? The taxpayer ?
Confused.
 

N.Yorks.

Member
Am I understanding this correctly ?
Someone will give you money to turn PP into woodland, in the form of 'carbon credits' ?
Why ? PP is a better carbon store than woodland.
Who is handing this money over ? Private business ? The taxpayer ?
Confused.
Not quite..... you put trees in the ground and as they grow in size the tree sequesters carbon into the wood, so at intervals in the woodland/forests life - 5,15,25,35 years etc, it is possible to calculate the amount of carbon that has been taken up and fixed within the wood. At those intervals the woodland is monitored to make sure it is still there and the carbon uptake/sequestered is then verified. Once verified the carbon that has been fixed can then be traded or be paid for by our government. Therefore you plant a succesful woodland and get an income over the life of the trees. As the deciduous trees drop their leaves annually these will drop to the ground and add to the soil carbon store etc.

Once the trees get to the end of their lifecycle they either fall over and rot slowly, which I'm guessing won't happen in reality, or the timber will be harvested. If the timber is used for construction or something similar that allows the wood to stay as wood/fibre then the carbon remains in a solid form. If the timber is burnt and the CO2 is released to the atmosphere then we're back to the beggining of the cycle.........

Government is kick starting the carbon payments to get the carbon capture/trading system going, then it will be the drive for net zero by 2050 that will make business buy the carbon.
 

N.Yorks.

Member
Am I understanding this correctly ?
Someone will give you money to turn PP into woodland, in the form of 'carbon credits' ?
Why ? PP is a better carbon store than woodland.
Who is handing this money over ? Private business ? The taxpayer ?
Confused.

Have a look at this abstract (full study link here: file:///Users/iainmurray1/Downloads/Soil_carbon_changes_after_establishing_woodland_an.pdf )

Abstract
This study determined the effect of two tree planting methods (woodlandand a silvopastoral agroforestry system) on the soil bulk density and organic carbon content of a grassland site in lowland England. Soil organic carbon was measured in pasture, silvopastoral tree, and woodland treatments at six depths representative of 0-150 cm. Fourteen years after tree planting, the organic carbon content in the surface soil layer (0-10 cm) as greatest in the pasture (6.0 g 100 g-1) and least in the woodland (4.6 g100 g-1); the value (5.3 g 100 g-1) below the silvopastoral trees was intermediate. In the 10-20 cmlayer, the organic carbon content in the woodland was 13% lower than the pasture.No treatment effects on soil carbon were detected below 20 cm. Possible reasons for the decline in surface soil carbon include a decline in grass cover and reduced soil water content. Measurements of above ground carbon storage by the trees indicated that tree planting increased overall carbon storage, with the silvopastoral system predicted to achieve a higher level of carbon storage than equivalent areas of separate woodland and pasture. A power analysis indicates that a prohibitively large number of replicates is needed to ensure a lower than 20% risk of falsely concluding no treatment differencesat individual depth increments below 10 cm and cumulative depths extending below 40 cm.
 

BrianV

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dartmoor
Not quite..... you put trees in the ground and as they grow in size the tree sequesters carbon into the wood, so at intervals in the woodland/forests life - 5,15,25,35 years etc, it is possible to calculate the amount of carbon that has been taken up and fixed within the wood. At those intervals the woodland is monitored to make sure it is still there and the carbon uptake/sequestered is then verified. Once verified the carbon that has been fixed can then be traded or be paid for by our government. Therefore you plant a succesful woodland and get an income over the life of the trees. As the deciduous trees drop their leaves annually these will drop to the ground and add to the soil carbon store etc.

Once the trees get to the end of their lifecycle they either fall over and rot slowly, which I'm guessing won't happen in reality, or the timber will be harvested. If the timber is used for construction or something similar that allows the wood to stay as wood/fibre then the carbon remains in a solid form. If the timber is burnt and the CO2 is released to the atmosphere then we're back to the beggining of the cycle.........

Government is kick starting the carbon payments to get the carbon capture/trading system going, then it will be the drive for net zero by 2050 that will make business buy the carbon.
What a load of BS, we get the Americans to cut down 800,000 trees each day to burn daily in the Drax power station & yet even though those trees are dried chipped & shipped to the UK, they then pretend that the regrowth of the areas if it ever happens will somehow offset the carbon expelled in the process.
Big business trumps all other common sense when government gets involved in the eco world.
 

N.Yorks.

Member
What a load of BS, we get the Americans to cut down 800,000 trees each day to burn daily in the Drax power station & yet even though those trees are dried chipped & shipped to the UK, they then pretend that the regrowth of the areas if it ever happens will somehow offset the carbon expelled in the process.
Big business trumps all other common sense when government gets involved in the eco world.
With all due respect my comments have FA to do with Drax. They are commenting on UK policy to encourage more woodland/forest planting by giving landowners additional income over the lifecycle of the wood.

The importation of timber from Europe and N America to fuel Drax is another issue completely. I agree that is totally insane, felling natural forest, chipping and shipping it to the UK - pointless! Pouring petrol on a fire to put it out in global warming terms!
 

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