100-Year Plan To Bring Tree Cover Back To Barren Eryri

'CO-OPERATION OF WHOLE COMMUNITY' REQUIRED IF 2125 TARGETS ARE TO BE MET

- ANDREW FORGRAVE

AMBITIOUS plans have been unveiled to create vast new woodland that would transform Eryri (Snowdonia).

Over the next century, millions of saplings are to be planted on mountainsides to increase the national park's tree cover by 50%.

If the objective is achieved, new woodlands will have emerged across 53,315 acres - around a tenth of the national park - by 2125.

Most of the new woodland would be on upland ffridd and steep bracken sites on mountainsides.

Eryri currently has 20% tree cover and the authority's Tree and Woodland Strategy (TAWS) aims to increase this to 30% over the next 100 years.

By 2125, 80% of Eryri's ancient woodland would also have been restored, and ancient and veteran trees would get a helping hand, too.

The National Park Authority (NPA) said its targets will need the "co-operation of the whole community" if they are to be achieved.

If TAWS can hit 25% tree cover by 2050, the rate of tree planting should then halve over the next 75 years/ The end goal is for 75% of the national park's woodland resource to be made up of native trees. The remaining 25% would be made up of conifer and other non-native trees.

Along with peatland restoration and the conversion of non-profitable conifer plantations, this will inevitably lead to a decline in Wales' softwood timber resource for commercial foresters, said TAWS.

But strategy authors believes commercial forestry can still be viable, even if its focus is shifted to hardwood timber from slower-growing native trees.

They said: "There will be plenty of scope for well-designed mixed forest types producing high-quality timber to still be a considerable part of the landscape within the National Park."

Underscoring the strategy is a need to provide a "resilient and dynamic landscape" to counter the climate and nature emergencies.