League tables can often be a bit misleading but The Friends of the Earth's ranking of major UK landowners (like the UK Government in all its guises, the Royal Family, British Rail, National Trust and the Church of England) in terms of the numbers of trees on the acres they control is thought-provoking (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/04/englands-biggest-landowners-not-growing-enough-trees-report). It is pretty well-established that providing more trees would help mitigate the effects of climate change and that the UK is currently relatively tree free (only 10% of land is wooded). The league table notes (surprise, surprise) that the only member of the top ten that had more than the average density of trees was the Forestry Commission (although these might be the 'wrong sort' of trees). The two bodies 'languishing in the relegation zone' were The Church of England and the Duchy of Cornwall. All the organisations responding the enquiries about the table, seemed to be about to become involved in major tree planting exercises and/or claimed that their trees had not been accurately counted. The point, however, remains that only a few big organisations own most of the land in the UK. Their lands are not currently heavily-wooded and they could certainly plant more trees!
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