The report, which has been put together by the government’s own independent climate advisers has said that the planting of new forests in England this year has fallen short of last year’s targets and that 5,000 hectares will need to be planted every year for the next five years. One 763 hectares of new forest have been planted during the worst of the pandemic, from April to September 2020, the equivalent of just 1.3 million trees. While the government may be behind the targets for this year, the worry is that they won’t be anywhere near ready for the next step-up in 2025, when the expectation will be to plant 10,000 hectares a year. Boris Johnson himself set an ambitious target of 30,000 hectares of new forest per year in last week’s wide-ranging climate announcements. But speaking in The Independent, the Green Party’s Natalie Bennett has said that the government is making false promises on the environment. “In our climate emergency and nature crisis this is a tragically inadequate figure,” she said. “Once again in environmental policy we see government action is no way matching up to government promises. “Instead of rhetorical hot air from the government we need to see shovels in the earth and protective fencing on the landscape.” It’s not known whether the COVID lockdown played a role in the slowdown of tree-planting projects in the UK this year, but a government spokesman said that new forests remain a big part of their strategy. “Tree planting remains at the heart of our ambitious environmental programme which is why we have committed to increase tree planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025. “We have already consulted on our England Tree Strategy and announced a £640m Nature for Climate Fund – which will be vital tools in ensuring we work closely with communities and landowners to accelerate tree planting and meet this ambitious target.”