Environmental mapping company Land App has partnered with the Forestry Commission.
The partnership is best experienced through a newly launched tool which enables farmers and landowners in England to understand where they can introduce trees and benefit from up to £8,000 per hectare from the new grant scheme, the England Woodland Creation Offer (EWCO).
While exploring the feasibility of developing woodland, there are many questions that the Land App’s new tool helps to answer, such as the usefulness of planting and financial help or incentives for converting parcels of land that may be otherwise dedicated to agricultural activities.
Tool features include a digital map showing users what areas would be eligible to tap into scheme payments and estimates on carbon sequestration over 100 years.
The digital map filters out areas with planting constraints such as SSSIs, priority habitats, peat, or grade 1 or 2 agricultural land. With the ‘can’t plant here’ land removed from visibility on the digital map, it’s easy for users to understand areas that can be converted to create new habitats. The tool also helps users understand the types of funding they wood (sorry, ‘would’) be eligible to receive through the EWCO (whether new woodland creation or allowing for natural colonisation).
Before making appointments with consultants or spending any money, this app is the home-forestry-maker test kit that will give you a good idea of whether your woodland ideas are viable.
To sum up
This new tool from the Land App and the Forestry Commission partnership is a good starting point for landowners and farmers to check their woodland creation plans. Many more steps remain once a landowner’s woodland creation ideas are validated.
Suppose you’re considering converting land and creating new woodland. In that case, this tool is incredibly valuable to understand if it’s a worthwhile activity for you and what funding pots you may be entitled to. Following that, Protect Earth is experienced in the next steps - all the application paperwork for grants and where to get the suitable species to create a woodland of native and naturalised species. Please get in touch with us if you feel you’d benefit from our experience converting your land or farm into woodland.