Woodland Statistics

This page provides provisional results, released in June 2018.  For more detailed results, please refer to Forestry Statistics 2018, released on 27 September 2018.

                                                                  

The latest National Statistics on Woodland Area, Planting & Publicly Funded Restocking produced by the Forestry Commission were released on 14 June 2018 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

The First Release contains provisional statistics for the year to March 2018 on:

  • UK woodland area;
  • certified woodland area; and
  • areas of new planting and publicly funded restocking.

The main findings are:

  • The area of woodland in the UK at 31 March 2018 is 3.17 million hectares. This represents 13% of the total land area in the UK, 10% in England, 15% in Wales, 19% in Scotland and 8% in Northern Ireland.
  • Of the total UK woodland area, 0.86 million hectares is owned or managed by the Forestry Commission (in England and Scotland), Natural Resources Wales or the Forest Service (in Northern Ireland).
  • The total certified woodland area in the UK at 31 March 2018 is 1.38 million hectares, including all Forestry Commission/Natural Resources Wales/Forest Service woodland. Overall, 43% of the UK woodland area is certified.
  • Nine thousand hectares of newly created woodland were reported in the UK in 2017-18.
  • Fourteen thousand hectares of woodland restocking were reported in the UK in 2017-18.

     

Coverage: United Kingdom

Geographical breakdown: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

     

First Release:

Woodland Area, Planting and Publicly Funded Restocking: 2018 Edition

Data:

Tables in Excel format.

Longer time series data:

Quality:

Quality report: Woodland Area, Planting and Publicly Funded Restocking

    

Statistician: Sheila Ward

Contact: Robert Stagg

Tel: 0300 067 5238

Email: statistics@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

    

Next update:

27 September 2018 - final results for the year to March 2018 (see Forestry Facts and Figures 2018 and Forestry Statistics 2018).

13 June 2019 - provisional results for the year to March 2019.

Pre-release access:

Information on pre-release access to this publication can be found in the pre-release access page.

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Additional Resources

Methodology

Information on the methodology for estimating woodland area is provided in the sources chapter of Forestry Statistics 2017.  The estimates make use of the National Forest Inventory data.  Further information (including reports) on the National Forest Inventory is avaliable on the Inventory pages.

Previous releases

Early provisional results are provided in the First Release Woodland Area, Planting and Publicly Funded Restocking, published every June:

The final results are published every September in Foresty Statistics and summarised in Forestry Facts and Figures.

     

User engagement

In order to improve the statistics that we produce and to ensure that they remain relevant, we are interested in hearing from people who use our statistics. More information on how we consult users and contact details can be found on our user engagement page.