Exploring opportunities of British forests to mitigate climate change

Climate change is widely recognised as the most serious environmental threat facing mankind and has diverse local, regional and global consequences. Many climate policy and research initiatives that focus on carbon sequestration are directed towards both woodland expansion and using wood as a substitute for fossil fuels. However, there is a knowledge gap with respect to the socio-economic aspects of carbon sequestration forest policy activities. It is important to identify projects which will be coherent, effective, efficient, widely accepted by the public, and consistent with other aspects of policy for sustainable development. This paper addresses the social and economic aspects of climate change mitigation by forestry and the necessity of reconciling sustainable development (SD) with carbon sequestration forest policy initiatives. The paper analyses the cost-effectiveness of climate change mitigation through forestry, and identifies the importance of placing forestry and biomass production for carbon sequestration in the general context of rural land use in Britain, where significant policy reform can be anticipated