UK governments have fallen so far short of their tree-planting targets since 2020 that they have failed to plant an area of forest nearly equivalent to the size of Birmingham, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
During the 2019 election campaign, the Conservatives committed to a UK-wide goal of creating 30,000 hectares of new woodland a year by 2025.
This pledge became part of the government’s net-zero strategy, which relies on “significant” tree-planting to make up for emissions from polluting sectors, such as aviation and farming.
Authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have all set out their own tree-planting ambitions, including annual goals between 2020 and 2025.
Every nation in the UK has repeatedly failed to meet these goals. This means that, despite the latest figures showing an increase in woodland creation over the past year, thousands of hectares of trees have gone unplanted across the UK since the original target was set.
By 2050, the unplanted trees would have removed some 8.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide (MtCO2) from the atmosphere, Carbon Brief analysis shows – roughly 2% of the UK’s annual emissions in 2023. This will need to be made up for with stronger efforts elsewhere, if the UK’s net-zero by 2050 target is to be met.
‘Abandoned’ target
Centuries of deforestation have left the UK one of the least forested nations in Europe.
Tree-planting can help the country meet its climate targets by removing CO2, as well as improving biodiversity and providing protection from flooding.
In this context, tree-planting enjoyed cross-party support in the run up to the 2019 general election, with parties vying to release the most ambitious targets.
Ultimately, the Conservatives emerged victorious from the election and pledged to raise tree-planting levels from around 13,000 hectares per year in 2018-19 to 30,000 hectares by the end of parliament, which was pegged for 2024-25. (Annual tree-planting figures are reported for the period between 1 April in one year and 31 March in the following year.)
This goal was roughly in line with guidance from government advisers the Climate Change Committee (CCC). The committee concluded that achieving 30,000 hectares a year by 2025 and then gradually raising it to 50,000 hectares a year by 2035, could increase forest cover from 13% to 18% by 2050, while removing more than 10MtCO2 from the atmosphere each year by 2050.
However, tree-planting is a devolved matter in the UK. England and the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each had to develop their own policies to drive afforestation following the 2019 election.
It soon became clear that the 2025 UK-wide target was slipping out of reach. Each year, data released by government body Forest Research showed nationwide tree-planting rates flatlining, rather than rising to meet the 30,000 hectares target.
The most recent dataset, released on 20 June – two weeks before another general election – shows that only 20,660 hectares of new woodlands were planted in 2023-24.
While this is a significant jump from the previous three years, it is still far short of the 30,000 hectares target for 2025, as the chart below shows.
As early as 2021, a report by the Institute for Government thinktank declared that the government’s overall tree-planting target had been “abandoned”.
A highly critical report released by MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee in 2023 concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” the goal would be met. It stated:
“We are extremely concerned by the consistently poor progress made in increasing tree-planting rates across all four of the nations in the UK.”
None of the major parties have included significant tree-planting targets in their manifestos for the upcoming election. Labour includes a vague pledge to plant “millions of trees” and “create new woodlands”, while the Conservatives say they will deliver existing commitments.
Birmingham-sized forest
The Conservatives’ ultimate goal of 30,000 hectares is only part of the story. Each nation has its own interim targets for scaling up tree-planting and each annual target missed means areas of forest that have not been planted.
The gaps between the nations’ combined annual targets and the actual area of trees planted across the UK can be seen in the chart below.
According to Carbon Brief calculations, these missed targets amount to 22,129 hectares of forest that has not been planted between 2020-21 and 2023-24. This is an area nearly the size of Birmingham, the nation’s second most populous city.
Scotland, which is home to around half the UK’s forests and most of its timber industry, set out its tree-planting goals in a 2020 update to its 2018-2032 climate change plan. This included a target of planting 12,000 hectares of woodland in 2020/21, rising gradually to 18,000 hectares in 2024-25.
England also set out a “planned trajectory” for tree-planting under its Nature for Climate Fund tree programme, which is also meant to contribute to the government’s legally binding goal of reaching 16.5% tree cover in England by 2050.
This trajectory covered government schemes pushing up English tree-planting from 673 hectares in 2020-21 to 7,500 hectares in 2024/25. (The 2020-21 target appears to be a significant underestimate, considering that in 2019-20 the rate was 2,340 hectares.)
In Wales and Northern Ireland, the devolved governments both committed to planting rates roughly in line with CCC recommendations.
For Wales, that meant “at least” 2,000 hectares a year from 2020, with a non-specific pledge that this would increase “over time”, as set out in its Woodlands for Wales strategy.
Northern Ireland set out plans to plant 9,000 hectares of new forest between 2020 and 2030, under the Forests for Future scheme. Annual goals up to 2023-24 are set out in the country’s forest service business plans, and a spokesperson from the Northern Ireland Executive says future plans will appear in an upcoming climate action plan.
(Together, the devolved administration targets add up to just 27,500 hectares in 2024-25. However, the flexibility in future targets for Wales and Northern Ireland could make up the remaining 2,500 hectares.)
The charts below show how afforestation in UK nations has compared to their targets since 2020-21.
Tree-planting rates have increased in England – boosted by schemes such as the Woodland Creation Offer, which pays farmers and landowners to plant forests on their land. Nevertheless, the government did not achieve its targets for the country.
In Scotland, tree-planting rates had been falling until last year – a trend that was attributed to cuts in its woodland creation budget, as well as labour and skills shortages. Scotland’s repeated failure to hit its afforestation targets was cited by the CCC in March as one of the reasons the Scottish National Party-led government’s climate plan was “no longer credible”.
A failure to allocate enough funds to tree-planting, expand the nation’s tree nurseries and drive demand for domestic timber have all been highlighted as barriers to the UK’s afforestation programme by MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
A spokesperson for the Scottish government tells Carbon Brief that Scotland has “consistently created the lion’s share of UK new planting and this year is no exception”. They say that changes to the country’s forestry grant scheme and a sped-up applications process helped them to reach the highest level of planting in 34 years in 2023-24.
A Welsh government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief that while they see last year’s tree-planting as “a significant achievement, we recognise we need to continue building on this success”.
The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) declined to comment on the figures.
Stuart Goodall, the chief executive at the Confederation of Forest Industries (Confor), tells Carbon Brief the trade association is “extremely disappointed” that all four nations failed to meet what he calls “achievable planting targets”. He adds:
“Tree-planting is heavily regulated and grant-aided…It is vital that adequate public funds are made available and that the process of approving applications to plant is improved, especially for larger woodland creation projects.”
The UK government’s carbon budget delivery plan, published in 2023 to flesh out the strategy for achieving its upcoming climate targets, includes some pessimistic estimates for tree-planting. It sees UK-wide afforestation falling between 2021 and 2025 and continuing to remain relatively low out to 2035.
Despite these estimates, Carbon Brief understands that, on paper at least, 30,000 hectares per year by 2025 has remained the official target within government.
Extra carbon
A nationwide shortfall in tree-planting has implications for the UK’s climate targets. The government’s net-zero strategy relies on “significant afforestation” to “balance” the UK’s so-called “residual emissions” in 2050.
These are emissions for which affordable or scalable low-carbon alternatives are not expected to be available by mid-century, meaning CO2 has to be removed from the atmosphere in order to achieve “net-zero”. Examples include some of the emissions from aviation, livestock farming and the waste sector.
Trees absorb more CO2 as they grow larger. This means that while the short-term emissions saving from newly planted trees is small, it increases as the years pass.
In the CCC’s “balanced pathway” to net-zero, it estimates that afforestation over the next few decades would be removing more than 10m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) per year by 2050.
However, the CO2 savings from the trees planted over the past four years alone are not expected to be large.
If the devolved governments had met their tree-planting targets in full up to 2023-24, 32MtCO2 would have been removed cumulatively by 2050, according to Carbon Brief analysis. Trees planted in line with these goals would remove around 1.2MtCO2 per year by 2050.
Due to the tree-planting shortfall, some 8.5MtCO2 of removals have been lost over this period – equivalent to around 2% of the UK’s economy-wide emissions in 2023. These trees would have removed 0.23MtCO2 per year by 2050.
The shortfall in tree-planting could leave the UK more reliant on CO2 removal technologies, which are still in the early stages of deployment. (The net-zero strategy already assumes that 75-81MtCO2 will need to be removed using these technologies in 2050.)
Alternatively, the UK could make up for the shortfall by making deeper emissions cuts elsewhere – for example, by reducing demand for flights or meat-based diets.
Lydia Collas, a senior policy analyst at Green Alliance, tells Carbon Brief that a new land-use framework in England would help to link up landowners and farmers prime tree-planting areas with money and resources:
“The UK must start to take its commitments to restore nature seriously, including targets to create woodlands. To avoid missing our 2030 target to cut emissions under the Paris Agreement, we need to get back on track.”
The post Analysis: UK misses tree-planting targets by forest the ‘size of Birmingham’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK misses tree-planting targets by forest the ‘size of Birmingham’
Australia’s network of marine parks is the largest in the world, covering more than half (52%) of Australia’s Commonwealth waters. You could be forgiven for assuming that a marine park is much like a national park on land: a highly protected place where people can enjoy nature while conservation efforts help habitats recover and wildlife thrive. You wouldn’t expect someone to bulldoze a national park, so why should they be allowed to bottom trawl in a marine park?
The reality is that not all marine parks are equally protected. Australia’s Marine Parks Network is divided into different zoning categories, with each zone determining which activities are permitted and the level of protection provided.
More than half of the Commonwealth Marine Parks Network allows industrial activities like oil and gas mining, and industrial fishing.
Our survival, and the survival of our planet, depends on the ocean. The ocean produces more oxygen than all of our forests combined, sustains communities and regulates the earth’s temperature. It’s home to wondrous wildlife and important ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests.
We love our big blue backyard
Australia’s ocean is teeming with life that is found nowhere else on earth. Schools of colourful fish, vibrant coral reefs, endemic shark nurseries, pods of dolphins, families of whales, playful seal pups and threatened Jurassic-era turtles call Australian waters home.
Since time began, from the turquoise waves to the deep blue, the ocean has connected our shorelines and communities, fed us, guided us and grounded us. We are intrinsically connected to our big blue backyard – more than 85% of us live within 50km of the shoreline. For tens of thousands of years, people have lived in harmony with the ocean and the wildlife within it, caring for and being sustained by its rich waters. Australia’s waters are some of the most unique and abundant places on Earth but our Marine Parks Network is falling short to properly protect them.
Australia’s marine parks aren’t living up to their name
The Australian Commonwealth Marine Parks Network covers commonwealth waters 5.5km from the coast. The network is divided into 7 regional management areas, overall the network contains 60 marine parks. Zoning types determine what activities are allowed in each area. Over half of the network allows industrial activities, risking our most precious and threatened ocean wildlife.
Within many of our marine parks, destructive industries are allowed to fish, trawl, dig and mine using barbaric and cruel methods. Here are some of the zones explained:
- Bottom Trawling: Special Purpose (trawl) zones allow bottom trawling. This covers 10 marine parks totalling almost 13 million hectares. Bottom trawlers bulldoze the seafloor with weighted nets, deforesting our underwater forests; a cruel, indiscriminate and inefficient way to fish.
- Other Industrial Fishing: Includes “Habitat Protection Zones, ““Multi Use Zones” and “Special Purpose Zones.” Fishing methods vary from park to park but many marine parks in these zones allow industrial fishing like longlining. Longlining involves setting lines that can be 100km long, bristling with deadly hooks designed to catch a specific fish species. But longlining is not a selective method of fishing – significant numbers of sharks, rays, turtles, dolphins and seabirds can be harmed or killed as bycatch in the process.
- Oil and Gas Mining: Many “Special Purpose” and “Multi Use” zones allow seismic blasting and oil and gas mining. 30 marine parks or 65 million hectares of Australia’s highest conservation value areas for ocean wildlife are open for mining and exploration of oil and gas.
- Ocean Sanctuaries: National Park and Sanctuary zones are fully and highly protected marine parks designed to conserve wildlife and their habitat, where fishing, mining, and other industrial activities are not allowed.
Industrial fishing is one of the biggest threats to the ocean
In May, Greenpeace Australia Pacific sailed our campaigning vessel Oceania through some of Australia’s most beautiful and threatened marine parks. Our crew visited Jervis and Hunter marine parks to document their beauty, showcase what’s at risk and aim to expose the industrial fishing activities in these protected waters. Both of these marine parks allow bottom trawling and longlining methods of industrial fishing.
Industrial fishing is ripping the ocean apart across the planet. Longlining, also known as longline fishing, is an industrial fishing method that involves the use of a fishing line with thousands of baited hooks. These fishing lines can stretch over 100 kilometers in length and are set to capture a fish species, often tuna or billfish species. But it is not a selective method of fishing and often results in significant bycatch. This includes a range of non-target species like sharks, rays, sea turtles, marine mammals, and seabirds which are often injured or killed as bycatch.
Bottom trawling involves dragging heavy weighted nets along the ocean floor. This fishing method is popular with commercial fishing companies, because it makes it easy to catch large quantities of fish in one go. But it also damages the seafloor, releasing carbon and can kill or injure non-target ocean life like coral, fur seals, dolphins and seabirds. You may have watched the reality of bottom trawling (and the benefits of ocean sanctuaries) in Ocean with David Attenborough, if not, add it to your watch list!
Fully protected ocean sanctuaries that ban industrial fishing and mining can protect ocean wildlife and underwater wonderlands for generations to come. Vast, robust sanctuaries create blue havens where ocean wildlife are safe from nets and hooks, and can truly rest, recover, thrive and replenish out into the surrounding waters. Ocean sanctuaries ensure a healthy ocean full of life.
A once-in-a-decade chance to fix what’s falling short
We have a unique opportunity to turn the tide.
The Australian Government is asking for your feedback on how our Commonwealth Marine Parks Network is managed. This is our once-in-a-decade chance to protect ocean wildlife, ban industrial fishing and create more ocean sanctuaries.
As part of the review the Government is asking for submissions from the public to hear from you on what improvements are needed to better protect our vast network of marine parks. Writing a submission is a powerful way to influence government decisions and create real change.
This is the moment to ban industrial activities like bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. But only if they hear from YOU. Add your name!
Greenpeace is calling on the Australian government to:
1. Ban industrial activities from Australia’s Marine Parks Network: Ban industrial activities, such as industrial fishing, seismic blasting and oil and gas mining, from Australia’s marine parks.
2. Create more ocean sanctuaries: Increase fully protected sanctuaries in Australia’s marine parks based on science principles.
3. Connect Australia’s Marine Parks Network to the High Seas: mCreate seascape connectivity by linking Australian marine parks to new high seas ocean sanctuaries.
References
Substantiation that more than half of the Marine Parks Network permits industrial activity comes from a peer-reviewed systematic literature review (Phillips et al. 2025, PLOS One, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0307324). The study found that within the Commonwealth Marine Parks Network specifically, “all zones are considered partially protected areas, meaning areas where extractive activities are permitted, except ‘Pink zones’ (Preservation Zones; IUCN Ia) and ‘Green Zones’ (IUCN II).” In other words, every Commonwealth marine park zone type other than the network’s strict no-take sanctuary and national park zones (IUCN Ia and II) permits some form of extractive industrial activity. Since no-take zones are the minority zone type across the network by area, this supports the conclusion that the majority of the network’s area is zoned to permit industrial activity.
DCCEEW Australian Marine Parks spatial dataset (https://fed.dcceew.gov.au/datasets/erin::australian-marine-parks/explore), filtered by zone type. This confirms that 38.43% of the network’s area is zoned as Sanctuary or National Park zones (IUCN Ia and II). These are the no-take categories excluded from the peer-reviewed study’s definition of partially protected/industrial-permitting zones. The remaining 61.57% of the network falls within the zone categories the study classifies as permitting industrial activity (per The MPA Guide definition of “industrial” applied in Phillips et al. 2025), directly corroborating the peer-reviewed finding with current Commonwealth-specific spatial data.
For further information on activities permitted within the Marine Parks Network Zoning, you can refer to the Management Plans zoning and rules for each Marine Parks Network area, for example: Temperate East, Coral Sea, North.
A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific advocates for the closure of bottom trawling in Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. Bottom trawling continues to be a pervasive threat to ocean life in Australia, with 10 marine parks totalling almost 13 million hectares, allowing bottom trawling.
Australia’s network of marine parks, which is the biggest in the world, covers more than half (52%) of Australia’s Commonwealth domestic waters, but not all parks are created equal. Australia’s Marine Parks Network is divided into different zoning categories, with each zone determining which activities are permitted and the level of protection provided. More than half of the Marine Parks Network allow industrial activities like industrial fishing and oil and gas mining. This includes zoning types that allow destructive fishing by longliners and bottom trawlers, who pillage underwater wonderlands, rip up coral and indiscriminately and violently catch any animal in their path, including turtles, seals and dolphins, all within areas labelled a marine park.
The Federal government has commenced a review into the majority of Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network management plans. This presents an opportunity to ban industrial activities from our marine parks and create more ocean sanctuaries.
© Harriet Spark / Grumpy Turtle Film / Greenpeace
The banner drop is a distinctive part of the Greenpeace repertoire.
The moment of the unfolding is intrinsically dramatic. It is the reveal; when the moral and scientific truth of a situation is unveiled to the world. The wrong is being labelled—not through a written submission, or a social media post, or a statement in a meeting—but in words emblazoned in real physical space, chosen and occupied with precision, for all to see. There is jeopardy and transgression. And there are consequences—for the activists and for Greenpeace, as well as for the target of the communication. One of the reasons the banner remains such an effective tool in our toolbox is because of its undeniable clarity in cutting through, driving change and accountability in a way that few other tactics can. It is naming the wrong: in giant, clear letters.
We’ve hung these massive messages at environmental crime scenes, corporate headquarters, and iconic landmarks; on government buildings, ships and planes—in locations all around the world, for years.
My own memories unfurl even as I write this, but because the campaign to stop Woodside at Scott Reef is so pressing, what immediately springs to mind are two of our banners in that campaign: one on a crane outside their Perth HQ, and another on some of their corroding industrial junk at sea. What about you? Is there a particular banner that you picture when you think of Greenpeace?
The banners can attract global attention, but they have quiet beginnings. Each one is made by hand, often by volunteers. It is the invisible labour behind each spectacular public moment. One of the key pieces of equipment in our workshop at Rainbow Warrior House is the sewing machine. Sometimes our workshop is full of people and noise; at others it is quiet, the only sound being the gentle, purposeful, whir and buzz of a banner being sewn. It is usually our warehouse manager, Kieran Holmes, on the tools, head over the machine, carefully pouring over the raw canvas or tarp as the banner takes shape. Kieran’s one of those people who seems to be able to turn his hand to almost anything, but you wouldn’t know it because he’s old-school modest. In addition to being incredibly skilled, Kieran’s an all-round beaut human to have in the heart of our headquarters; never too busy to take the time to show a newcomer, or curious visitor, around his domain.
Once the banner is sewn up, the lettering needs to be outlined. This is done on a magnetic wall—a fit-for-purpose feature at Rainbow Warrior House, where the banner is held up with magnets, and the edges of the letters neatly traced from a projection.
Next comes the painting. It usually starts late in the afternoon, sometimes going into evenings and weekends, with volunteers, staff, mates crowded around, brushes in hand. It is a calming meditative feeling of shared purpose, giving each letter its visual heft, the colour building power and presence with each stroke.
Then you stand back, stretch, and look at the message, now ready.
S A V E S C O T T R E E F
Throughout history, every great push for social change has required some form of invisible labour; preparation in the form of quiet things seldom seen, but vital. It is the enabling work of love instantiated in action. And of course, so much of the time it has been women who have done this labour, so that the men could get the chance to make the speeches and stand on the podiums. The inaugural Greenpeace voyage to stop nuclear testing in 1971 had a male-only crew, but wouldn’t have happened without the ideas and work of women behind the scenes.
It is what we do together, after all, that changes the world. Sometimes that work happens on a stage, a ship on the wild seas, or up the side of a building. But mostly, it is the hidden diligence of those who care and contribute to all the enabling work that makes a change once thought impossible, inevitable. It is Kieran at his sewing machine. It was Dorothy Stowe doing the administrative work of the ‘Don’t Make A Wave Committee’ that became Greenpeace.
When we think of social change, it is the sturm and drang that we remember. The drop of the banner, the chant of the crowd, the raising of the new flag. But look behind the curtain, and there’ll be a crew of people who are taking responsibility for the administration, the sewing and the painting, making the food, checking the bus timetables, getting stuff done. And behind them are even more handsinvisibly donating time and trust; the financial, material and expert resources that make it all possible. There’s love, camaraderie and know-how at every stage.
We are social and cooperative creatures by nature. And we human beings have been stitching for millenia, sewing the possibilities of our common future. Political and corporate bullies and algorithmically manipulative platforms would have us forget this, and abandon who we are. But we should be in no doubt that the brighter prospects for ourselves and life on earth continue to be stitched and painted; collaboratively and with love, by the diligent hands of millions of people who care, each day, in every community and city across the world.
With Love,
David
Q & A
I always get great questions when interviewing prospective new team members. One that came up again recently was: “Is Greenpeace actually one organisation?”
Around the world, people know Greenpeace by our one global name, united by a shared mission: securing an Earth capable of nurturing life in all its magnificent diversity, with a particular focus on climate and biodiversity. Behind the scenes, though, we’re organised as a network of 25 legally autonomous national and regional offices, including Greenpeace Australia Pacific, working alongside Greenpeace International.
That structure gives us the best of both worlds: we work together leveraging the power of a global network on the issues that matter most, while each office remains legally independent and deeply connected to the communities, cultures and political realities where we’re embedded. Local knowledge informs global action, and global collaboration strengthens and supports local campaigns.
It’s a model that has enabled Greenpeace to take on some of the world’s biggest challenges for over five decades–while withstanding challenges and attacks from governments and corporations. Global enough to tackle global problems, local enough to understand our communities and the natural places we love.
If you’re curious to learn more, you can read about the Greenpeace Global Network structure here.
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