These people don't give 2 for nature just offsetting there liabilities
But grassland sequesters more carbon than woodland.. and hay meadows have greater biodiversity than poorly managed woodland.
All the people planting woodlands seem to forget that woodlands require a lot of management to be bio diverse and rewinding is actually just a mess.
Plants and animals in the UK have adapted over thousands of years to thrive in managed woodland. We have only been neglecting them for 40-50 years not enough time for them to adapt back.
How far back to you want to take the clock back and reset it? The landscape has changed massively over the years from the iceage to now, some of it done by us, some caused by natural climate change.
It depends on who 'these people' are you mention.
It's about making money. The landowners get paid and have the trees planted on their land.
Why is the Government giving out money? They'll be making money out of it somehow.
This is my take on it, it's from my thread:
"You'll remember I said all of this was forest many hundreds of years ago now, then we cut it all down, now we're being encouraged to plant trees there again by means of a grant. If you look at some of the pics you'll see many young trees in the background (Paid out at circa £10k per Hectare incase you're wondering). But i'm looking at how much we've dicked around with nature over the years by changing it's habitat. We should be looking after it, not cutting it down and changing it. Different animals need different environments so one day we're telling them all to piss off, then later on we're trying to get them back. I came across a load of frogspawn the other day laid on the grass as it had nowhere better to go. We've got moorland birds trying to nest and we're turning the fields back into forest ffs.
I could do with a few £K in my back pocket believe me, but i'm not here for the money. Forget your Government grants and whims.
I plan on turning this land into a sanctuary for all comers. We'll have a bit of everything for all: A bit of a lake, some evergreens for the owls and others to roost or nest in and some moorland for the Lapwings, Curlews, Oystercatchers and for the owls to hunt on. Meadow flowers too.
Then i'll get a covenant put on it so when we're gone it'll be protected for the future."
It's a highly complex topic and one I don't know many absolute facts about so I can't talk at length about it. Nor do you know my situation here to be able to judge or advise what I do. I can tell you we have no 'hay meadow' as it won't grow up here.
I can tell you some facts though. As you can see i'm trying to drain some of my land to make it more useable and productive:
I can't drive through it or around it for something like 2/3 of the year.
Midges live here by the billion because it's a perfect breeding ground for them. This means when it's warm we can't go outside with wearing nets.
I can actually claim a grant to leave my land alone and not drain it (it's a pittance).
As previously pointed out when water runs unchanneled over the fields it brings down the ancient drystone walls.
The soil is poor and causes flooding because we cut all the forests down.
See for everything you propose there is a benefit and an adverse effect too. That's why i'm hoping to do a bit of everything on the little bit I own.