Summary
Increasing woodland cover is a priority for all three nations of Great Britain. There are ambitious woodland creation and tree planting targets in each. This provides opportunity to restore degraded landscapes while tackling the climate and biodiversity crises. Forest Research’s Programme 6 – Woodland creation and expansion delivers research in this area.
Within this programme, one area of research focuses on land managers. Understanding land managers’ objectives, motivations, and behaviours and the decisions and trade-offs they make is crucial to delivering effective and enduring woodland creation. This work area comprises several social science research strands, including evidence mapping, and focuses on tenant farming and green finance.
Research Objectives
The main objective of this project is to learn more about who might create new woodlands, what their reasons might be and what support they need.
Latest Updates
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Mapping the evidence around land managers and woodland creation
We have systematically mapped social science evidence relating to land managers and woodland creation in the UK, and have updated this annually. We have published a paper outlining the review process and high-level findings. We have developed an online tool to allow users to explore the evidence.
Full details of the methodological approach for the review can be found in the accompanying open-access paper, published in Forests.
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Evidence review – tenanted farms and woodland creation
We combined an evidence review with a series of expert interviews to produce a report on barriers, opportunities, and questions around growing trees on tenant farms in Great Britain.
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Green finance and woodland creation
We have researched the role of green finance in woodland creation. Through a series of case studies, we explored the motivations, objectives, and experiences of a range of woodland creators who have used various types of green finance to help fund their woodland creation. Early in 2026, we will publish the case studies and a report drawing together key findings.
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Evidence summaries
We are working on a series of three evidence summaries which will explore relevant research from across Forest Research. These will focus on trees on farms; land manager values and objectives; and practical lessons for woodland creation.
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Investigating Environmental Impact Assessments as barriers to woodland creation (Report – March 2025)
We investigated whether Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are barriers to woodland creation schemes through focus groups with forestry and land agents, woodland officers and others engaged with supporting and encouraging the land management community.The research summarises the benefits of EIAs as well as the barriers to woodland creation and potential ideas to enhance the EIA process.