Can more trees get us out of the woods when it comes to climate change?

Continuing his series of reflections on places and pathways, Will Gore considers what it is that makes a decent forest

Britain is aiming to plant 1.5 billion trees to become carbon neutral by 2050 (Rex)

One and a half billion. That’s how many trees we must plant in Britain if we are to become carbon neutral by 2050.

There are other measures too – but it was the trees that grabbed me. Not because it seemed an incomprehensible number, but because it is such a wonderful prospect.

In any case, 1.5 billion by 2050 isn’t so many really. The government of New Zealand aims to plant a billion by 2028. In Pakistan, a project is underway to get 10 billion new trees in the ground within a five -ear period.

In that context, the proposal made this week by our own Committee on Climate Change feels moderately unambitious.

A rewooding of Britain is a tantalising prospect. Even if the space occupied by over a billion trees isn’t as much as you might think (you’ll get fewer than 2,000 per acre if spaced five feet apart), more woods and forests would do us the power of good.

But what kind of trees?

Please not the endless conifers that have dominated British plantations of the 20th century: spruce pines packed together densely, growing quickly in unvaried rows; black-green uniformed skittles – sucking up carbon dioxide to be sure, but into souls that are dark, dulled.

Woods which are characterised by variety become a mirror to humanity: all life is there, in every form

Inside such forests, life feels removed. Even sound is blunted by the fallen needles that coat the ground. They are not barren of wildlife exactly, but nor are they homes to abundant ecological diversity.

These are the kinds of forest that you look into and quickly turn away from; that might – if they are home to anything – offer a cloak of darkness to unpleasant beasts, not to mention the axemen and crones of Grimm fairytales.

In a small pine plantation near my childhood home, a wooden hut was just visible from the road – only for an instant when you looked out of the window at the right angle. But, pressed in by trees on all sides I knew in my heart it must surely be the home of a witch. It didn’t appear to be made of gingerbread, but I never ventured in, unwilling as I was to tempt fate.

Woods which are characterised by variety become a mirror to humanity: all life is there, in every form – sometimes twisted, but always affirming; rich in their changing multiplicity. In these places, which shift with the seasons – rather than standing unflinchingly against then – there is a distinct feeling of being uplifted.

Being lost in a dark forest of young pines, planted with a view to their own death by chainsaw, is to lose hope as well as the way. But in a wood of alder and oak, wild cherry and birch – where glades are glimpsed and where birds sing – to misplace a path is simply to begin an unexpected adventure.

So much so, in fact, that I have frequently disappointed my children, who appear desperate to become lost together in the beech-filled woods of the Chilterns, and who fail to understand that I might find myself in trouble with the long arm of the law if I let them have their way.

Let us plant saplings then; billions and billions of them. But may they be the right ones, planted diversely, jumbled up together – so that we can see, and adore, the wood for the trees.