Source · Select Committees · Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
However additional mapping information will not, in itself, help local authorities manage the potential trade-offs...
Recommendation
However additional mapping information will not, in itself, help local authorities manage the potential trade-offs between tree planting, creating and conserving other habitats and the needs of farmers and food production when developing Local Nature Recovery Strategies. We therefore recommend that the Government produces more comprehensive guidance for local authorities to help them manage and make decisions about competing priorities for land use when creating their Local Nature Recovery Strategies. (Paragraph 24) Incentivising tree planting
Government Response Summary
The government states it is already providing guidance through the Forestry Commission's 'Low Risk Land Map', sensitivity maps, and by preparing guidance for Local Authorities on Local Tree and Woodland Strategies.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Forestry Commission’s ‘Low Risk Land Map for Woodland Creation’ provides an easily accessible, broad screening of the major environmental constraints and sensitivities affecting forestry projects, identifying 3.2 million hectares of low-risk land. The tool screens for protected landscapes, agriculturally high-quality land, priority habitat, important wildlife sites, deep peat, and Scheduled Monuments. The Forestry Commission plans to publish an updated sensitivity map for woodland creation by the end of May 2022. The map identifies and informs decisions by identifying landscape sensitivities as well as less productive, lower grade agricultural land. The map will reflect recent guidance to protect upland breeding wader habitat and all peaty soils in England. The sensitivity map will continue to be updated as further datasets become available, including England’s revised peat map. The England Woodland Creation Offer targets supplementary payments to locations where public goods, for example biodiversity, flood resilience, water quality improvement, health and well-being and public access, can best be provided by new woodland. Targeting maps are available on the Forestry Commission’s map browser to help applicants, in conjunction with the low-risk map for woodland creation, identify the best places to locate new woodland. The Government is currently developing the regulations and statutory guidance needed to enable the preparation of Local Nature Recovery Strategies to begin across the whole of England, following their establishment in the Environment Act late last year. Regulations will set out the procedure that responsible authorities must follow in preparing their Local Nature Recovery Strategy, including how they must work with other local partner organisations. Statutory guidance will expand upon the detail provided by the Environment Act to set out what a Local Nature Recovery Strategy should contain. In 2022, Defra will be publishing guidance for Local Authorities to develop their local tree and woodland strategies. Alongside the Local Nature Recovery Strategies, these efforts will enable local authorities to take additional oversight and responsibility over local tree planting policies. We are also producing the Natural Capital and Ecosystems Assessment (NCEA) which will improve the quality of data, providing better granularity on species distribution, habitat extents for LNRS, biodiversity data, peatlands data, and soil health monitoring. NCEA data will also support the evaluation of policy interventions, for example Environmental Land Management schemes. Across government, we are working with the Geospatial Commission’s National Land Data Programme (NLDP) to improve access to authoritative land use data and enable more joined-up and coordinated government policy making and local delivery.