We’re way behind. Northern Ireland sits at 8.6% woodland cover. That makes us one of the barest patches in all of Europe. Look at our neighbors. Scotland is at 19%. Wales is at 15%. England, usually dense and industrial, holds 10%. Even the Republic hits 11%.
Here? Less than nine percent.
The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Authorities just launched the region’s first tree-planting action plan. It’s a five-year roadmap with ten strategic pillars. The math inside it is unforgiving. To hit 12% cover by 2050—the goal set by the Climate Change Act—we have to triple the current planting rate by 2032. Just to catch up.
The Carbon Budget for 2023 to 2027 commits to planting 2,585 hectares. The new plan says that isn’t enough. We need another 1,205 just to meet those interim targets. Then comes the real wall: 50,000 additional hectares for the long game.
Fifty thousand hectares.
Tree planting won’t suit every farm… At every stage… we have pushed for balanced messaging.
That’s a quote from the plan itself, and it’s rare honesty. Most of these documents are sales pitches disguised as policy. This one admits that trees aren’t the solution for every field. Farmers know this. They see the land, not just the carbon ledger. The plan acknowledges that “appetite” for planting among landowners is currently low. Why? Because farming is hard enough without turning acres of productive soil into sapling farms that might blow over in the first gale.
Environment Minister Andrew Muir called it “lots to do.” An understatement if ever there was one.
The plan isn’t built on magic bullets. It’s four buckets: governance, communication, education, and research. Thirty-one implementation steps sit under those headers. John Martin from the Woodland Trust called the plan “badly needed.” He’s right. But he also noted the challenge remains: changing how people feel about trees on their land.
You can mandate planting. You can’t mandate care.
We’ve spent years ignoring the forest while worrying about the economy. Now the economy needs the trees for carbon credits, flood management, biodiversity. The priorities have shifted overnight. But the soil doesn’t care about our panic.
Will the appetite change? Maybe. The review process is supposed to help. But 50,000 holes in the ground don’t dig themselves.
