Land managers in Scotland can now apply to a £2m fund to help create and restore native woodlands across the country.

The Future Woodlands Fund (FWF), managed by the charity Future Woodlands Scotland (FWS) is aiming to plant one million trees across Scotland during an initial three-year pilot phase starting in 2021 and sequester an estimated 235,000 tonnes of carbon by 2080.

In addition to supporting nature-based climate solutions, the charity also aims to enhance biodiversity and wildlife, boost the rural economy and provide wider access to woodlands for communities.

Tim Hall, chair of Future Woodlands Scotland, said: “This new fund will pilot an incentive-based approach to encourage landowners to establish new native woodland and restore ‘ghost’ or degraded former native woodlands that have high ecological potential.

“The Future Woodland Fund is intended to help land managers overcome financial and cultural barriers to deliver nature-based solutions to climate change and social benefits across Scotland.”

Any land manager in Scotland may apply to the fund provided their proposed project has a minimum size of 3 hectares and a maximum of 100 hectares.  

Working alongside the established Scottish Government’s Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS), the FWF will cover the costs of an application to the FGS, offer landowners area payments of £100/ha per annum for 20 years, and will provide advice on potential bridging loans for project implementation. 

All the projects will be registered and validated in the UK Woodland Carbon Code by FWS at no cost to the land manager. 

The fund has been made possible thanks to the backing of bp, who have supported the regeneration of native woodlands in Scotland for more than 20 years.

Tim Hall added: “We would encourage anyone who might be interested in this scheme to look on our website where they will find more information and application forms. We are keen to assist in any way we can and to make the process of establishing native woodland as straight forward as possible.

“We’re extremely grateful for bp’s support for native woodland projects in Scotland. We will review and assess the impact of this new pilot with a view to developing an ongoing programme with increased financial investment from existing and new corporate partners.  This could create even greater incentives for landowners to play their part in delivering nature-based solutions to climate change across Scotland.”

Giles Mackey, HSE and carbon manager at bp North Sea said: “bp is proud of our long-established partnership with this charity and look forward to seeing how this new approach with landowners can help create even more valuable native woodlands in Scotland.

“bp is aiming to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner and is in action to deliver this ambition across our business.  While natural climate solutions can help as part of the response to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, bp’s policy is to reduce our operational emissions at source and not to rely on carbon offsets.  All carbon credits generated by this scheme will be owned by Future Woodlands Scotland to re-invest in future projects and help Scotland reach its net zero goals.”