In association with the Forestry Commission Wales, this conference will engage with the Welsh Government’s policy to significantly increase the woodland cover in Wales from the present 14 per cent of the land area to 20 per cent by 2030. Creating new woodland offers benefits to the people in Wales aside from helping mitigate the impact of climate change. New woodland will consist of mainly native trees and will provide additional wildlife habitat, improve the quality of our landscape and waters and, at the same time, create useful timber products such as fuel and wood as a raw material.

This conference will engage with the following questions about land use: Where should this new woodland be created? What is the best way to achieve this land use change? How can we create a framework that will help us agree on where new woodland is appropriate and where it is not? How does creating new woodland fit into other objectives such as economic development, improved water quality and maintaining important non-woodland habitats?

Increasing Wales’ woodland by 100,000ha over 20 years presents a major challenge. The new policy will require farmers to plant mixed deciduous and conifer woodlands across suitable parts of largely upland Wales. This conference will address barriers to delivering the Welsh Government’s policy and the changes that will be needed to improve the likelihood of it being achieved.

Keynote speakers: John Griffiths, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development; Professor Gareth Wyn Jones, Chair, Welsh Government Land Use and Climate Change Group; Prof. Ian Bateman, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia; and Jon Owen Jones, Chair, Forestry Commission Wales.

Conference tickets for Growing our woodlands in Wales are:

• £56 for IWA members
• £70 for non-members
• £95 for a conference place and 1 year's IWA membership, which includes unlimited digital access to all IWA publications

For a full conference programme please click on the following link
http://www.iwa.org.uk/en/events/view/173