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Institute attends CLA Forestry Conference

On Wednesday 12 October, while colleagues were enjoying the National Study Tour, the Institute’s Head of Policy & Partnerships attended the Forestry Conference hosted by CLA, Forestry Commission and Grown in Britain.

This annual conference is a great opportunity to meet and speak with not only Institute members and partners but farmers, landowners and policy makers. The theme was Building Resilience Together and opened with an excellent keynote from The Rt Hon Lord Benyon who also opened our conference on the future of the elm tree in the summer. Lord Benyon is passionate about trees and provided reassuring words about the political will to take forward this agenda.

Other sessions included Naomi Matthiesen and Deborah Wells, Defra leads for the Nature for Climate Tree Fund and the Future Farming and Countryside Programme respectively, being interviewed by Graham Clark of the CLA on issues close to its members’ hearts such as the certainty needed on future of ELM. There were rallying talks on markets from Tom Barnes of Vastern Timber and Liz Nicholson of the Forest Canopy Foundation, on the future of grey squirrel control from Graham Taylor MBE FICFor and deer management from Richard Deffee, and on plant health resilience from Professor Nicola Spence, the UK’s Chief Plant Health Officer. The last session was a discussion between Richard Stanford CB MBE, Chief Executive of the Forestry Commission, and Mark Tufnell, CLA President, chaired by Dougal Driver FICFor of Grown in Britain, identifying the need and determination to work together to achieve our common goals.

Mark Tufnell will be speaking at the Institute’s National Conference 2023 on farming and forestry, due to launch in the coming weeks. During the day it was announced that Trudy Harrison has been appointed as the new forestry minister, and we will be writing to her in the coming days. We also look forward to the green finance strategy set to be published in the coming weeks by government, including a system for ecosystem services markets and core carbon principles.

These opportunities to spend time with partners, policymakers, members and sponsors are invaluable, and the conference was a great success.

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