Trees and woods: at the heart of nature recovery in Wales

We are in a nature crisis. Wales is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world and just 9% of its native woods are in favourable ecological condition.

Our Trees and woods: at the heart of nature recovery in Wales report shows the central role that Wales’s trees and woods should play in recovering nature.

With the Welsh government committing to halt the decline of species by 2030 and increase the abundance of wildlife thereafter, our report also provides recommendations for national and local government to implement to make this happen.

Trees and woods: at the heart of nature recovery in Wales lays out principles for nature recovery at three scales – landscape, woodland, and tree scale. It demonstrates the need to better protect woods and trees, restore more wooded habitats to good ecological condition, and create new native woods and trees to form wildlife-rich mosaics with other habitat types. Only then can we provide the resilient, dynamic ecosystems needed to stabilise and then increase the populations of Wales’s most vulnerable and threatened species, and keep common wildlife species common.