This area within North Cloich Woodland has least tree cover, but the isolated elders reveal the land's potential to sustain native tree species. More native trees planted across this wet ground will capture and hold carbon, transpire groundwater, improve the soil with accumulating leaf litter, develop habitat and biological diversity, and shelter wildlife and people. More tree planting in this area will effectively screen huts from view.
Sustainably Capturing Carbon: speculate to accumulate
Private car travel is considered unsustainable because cars emit carbon to the atmosphere. The supplementary statement submitted in support of the planning application shows that even if only 15% of hutters use non-car transport modes, the annual total of car journeys to and from all the proposed huts would still be substantially less than the car use typically generated by a single rural dwelling. Cars travelling to and from the intermittently occupied hutting site would therefore release much less carbon each year than other forms of development recently approved nearby.
Accommodation tied to the land is not unusual in the countryside because productive land needs people. The high cost of manual labour today deters the labour-intensive techniques of woodland management as practised in the past. Huts within North Cloich Woodland will bring motivated people into the woods, enabling timely, detailed, hands-on woodland regeneration, and with regular maintenance by hutters, the improved growth of trees. Trees capture and store carbon, and under continuous-cover woodland management, North Cloich Woodland will become an ever-increasing carbon sink. Sequestered carbon will be embodied in the timber huts from the outset, and accumulate in the deciduous trees as they grow. Continuing root development and autumn leaf fall will increase the depth of carbon-rich forest topsoil year on year. As a long term solution to carbon-induced climate change, the presence of huts within North Cloich Woodland will facilitate the most effective means known of limiting global warming . Overall the hutting site will contribute a net reduction in atmospheric carbon. (See detailed calculation below.)
Accommodation tied to the land is not unusual in the countryside because productive land needs people. The high cost of manual labour today deters the labour-intensive techniques of woodland management as practised in the past. Huts within North Cloich Woodland will bring motivated people into the woods, enabling timely, detailed, hands-on woodland regeneration, and with regular maintenance by hutters, the improved growth of trees. Trees capture and store carbon, and under continuous-cover woodland management, North Cloich Woodland will become an ever-increasing carbon sink. Sequestered carbon will be embodied in the timber huts from the outset, and accumulate in the deciduous trees as they grow. Continuing root development and autumn leaf fall will increase the depth of carbon-rich forest topsoil year on year. As a long term solution to carbon-induced climate change, the presence of huts within North Cloich Woodland will facilitate the most effective means known of limiting global warming . Overall the hutting site will contribute a net reduction in atmospheric carbon. (See detailed calculation below.)
Carbon sequestration in more and better trees:
The Forestry Commission sold the site as unsuitable for commercial forestry, intending that the land should be replanted as a native woodland. Fulfilling that objective has proved challenging. On the variable North Cloich soils, the current owner’s planting of native trees has shown the site’s potential to become a native woodland of hardwood trees, but with insufficient regular attention and maintenance many of the planted trees have declined or perished, while non-native sitka spruce has unhelpfully regenerated from seed. With huts on site, more people will become active in North Cloich Woodland more often, planting and maintaining native trees at their own expense, committed to the work through personal ownership. This will result in the growth of more and better native hardwood trees capturing more carbon, and a richer more diverse habitat for local wildlife. Huts within North Cloich Woodland offer multiple benefits: for nature, for the individuals planting their own trees, for our shared atmosphere decarbonised by carbon accumulation within the long-lived trees, for an enhanced local landscape, and for natural flood management by rainfall attenuation within the Eddleston Water catchment.
Averaged over 50 years, the total net carbon sequestration within the hutter managed woodland is estimated in the region of 30 tonnes per year. Slightly less if the trees are slow to establish, slightly more if hutters share cars or arrive on bicycles. This large amount of captured and stored carbon is clearly better than merely ‘sustainable’.
The Forestry Commission sold the site as unsuitable for commercial forestry, intending that the land should be replanted as a native woodland. Fulfilling that objective has proved challenging. On the variable North Cloich soils, the current owner’s planting of native trees has shown the site’s potential to become a native woodland of hardwood trees, but with insufficient regular attention and maintenance many of the planted trees have declined or perished, while non-native sitka spruce has unhelpfully regenerated from seed. With huts on site, more people will become active in North Cloich Woodland more often, planting and maintaining native trees at their own expense, committed to the work through personal ownership. This will result in the growth of more and better native hardwood trees capturing more carbon, and a richer more diverse habitat for local wildlife. Huts within North Cloich Woodland offer multiple benefits: for nature, for the individuals planting their own trees, for our shared atmosphere decarbonised by carbon accumulation within the long-lived trees, for an enhanced local landscape, and for natural flood management by rainfall attenuation within the Eddleston Water catchment.
Averaged over 50 years, the total net carbon sequestration within the hutter managed woodland is estimated in the region of 30 tonnes per year. Slightly less if the trees are slow to establish, slightly more if hutters share cars or arrive on bicycles. This large amount of captured and stored carbon is clearly better than merely ‘sustainable’.
Basis of carbon calculation:
To avoid any sense of over-optimism, several excessively pessimistic assumptions are built in to this calculation; that every hut is visited most weeks of every year; that every hut is accessed by a fossil-fueled car; that carbon sequestration by new native trees is at the low end of the probable range; and that no technological improvements will be made to reduce the carbon emissions of private transport within the next 50 years. Even with all this excessive negativity, the hutting site is shown to be fully sustainable in its effect on atmospheric carbon.
Carbon dioxide emissions from cars:
“Small, medium, large, city and estate cars 280g CO2 per mile”
At average 52 miles per gallon (measured value from Which? magazine car guide), CO2 per mile calculated from mpg and CO2 emissions of 14.3 kg per gallon, including oil exploration, oil extraction and refining, and fossil fuel used in vehicle production.
These figures from CarbonIndependent.org whose main author is medical statistics consultant Ian Campbell BA, BSc, MD, FRCS, FRCR.
https://www.carbonindependent.org/17.html (Accessed 8 June 2020)
Calculation of carbon emitted by hutters’ car transport:
If North Cloich Woodland hutters live up to 15 miles away, 15 miles x 2, plus a visit 5 miles x 2 to a shop = 40 miles per hutter visit x 280g CO2 per mile = 11200g CO2 = 11.2kg CO2 per hutter visit to North Cloich Woodland.
11.2kg x estimated total 500 hutter visits per year = 5600kg CO2 emissions produced by all 15 hutters per year.
5600kg x 0.001 = 5.6tonnes CO2 per year emitted by all 15 hutters.
Calculation of carbon captured by new native woodland trees within the hutter-owned fifteen acres of North Cloich Woodland:
“A new native woodland can capture 300-400 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent per hectare (tCO 2e/ha) by year 50”
These figures from Woodland Carbon Code. https://www.woodlandcarboncode.org.uk/images/PDFs/Woodland_Carbon_Code_Landowner_Leaflet_links_lowres.pdf (Accessed 8 June 2020)
300 tonnes per hectare captured over 50 yrs = 6 tonnes CO2 captured per hectare per average year
1 hectare = 2.471 acres
6 tonnes / 2.471 = 2.428 tonnes CO2 captured per acre per average year
Total area of hutter managed woodland = approx 15 acres
2.428 tonnes x 15 acres = 36.42 tonnes CO2 captured per average year
Calculation of net carbon captured by hutters at North Cloich Woodland:
As shown above, if all 15 hutters were to travel alone by car to the hutting site most weeks of the year (unlikely, because some may only visit once per month) they would collectively emit in total 5.6 tonnes CO2 per year.
36.42 tonnes captured minus 5.6 tonnes emitted = net 30.82 tonnes carbon captured by the 15 acres of hutter managed native trees per average year.
Slightly less net carbon may be captured if some trees are unusually slow to establish. Slightly more net carbon may be captured if some hutters arrive without a car.
If another margin for uncertainty is applied to this calculation to further reduce the net annual carbon capture by say 20% (30 tonnes -20%) = 24 tonnes of carbon would be captured per year, still highly desirable and better than a merely ‘sustainable’ achievement.
The environmental sustainability of the hutting site is therefore not in doubt.
To avoid any sense of over-optimism, several excessively pessimistic assumptions are built in to this calculation; that every hut is visited most weeks of every year; that every hut is accessed by a fossil-fueled car; that carbon sequestration by new native trees is at the low end of the probable range; and that no technological improvements will be made to reduce the carbon emissions of private transport within the next 50 years. Even with all this excessive negativity, the hutting site is shown to be fully sustainable in its effect on atmospheric carbon.
Carbon dioxide emissions from cars:
“Small, medium, large, city and estate cars 280g CO2 per mile”
At average 52 miles per gallon (measured value from Which? magazine car guide), CO2 per mile calculated from mpg and CO2 emissions of 14.3 kg per gallon, including oil exploration, oil extraction and refining, and fossil fuel used in vehicle production.
These figures from CarbonIndependent.org whose main author is medical statistics consultant Ian Campbell BA, BSc, MD, FRCS, FRCR.
https://www.carbonindependent.org/17.html (Accessed 8 June 2020)
Calculation of carbon emitted by hutters’ car transport:
If North Cloich Woodland hutters live up to 15 miles away, 15 miles x 2, plus a visit 5 miles x 2 to a shop = 40 miles per hutter visit x 280g CO2 per mile = 11200g CO2 = 11.2kg CO2 per hutter visit to North Cloich Woodland.
11.2kg x estimated total 500 hutter visits per year = 5600kg CO2 emissions produced by all 15 hutters per year.
5600kg x 0.001 = 5.6tonnes CO2 per year emitted by all 15 hutters.
Calculation of carbon captured by new native woodland trees within the hutter-owned fifteen acres of North Cloich Woodland:
“A new native woodland can capture 300-400 tonnes of CO 2 equivalent per hectare (tCO 2e/ha) by year 50”
These figures from Woodland Carbon Code. https://www.woodlandcarboncode.org.uk/images/PDFs/Woodland_Carbon_Code_Landowner_Leaflet_links_lowres.pdf (Accessed 8 June 2020)
300 tonnes per hectare captured over 50 yrs = 6 tonnes CO2 captured per hectare per average year
1 hectare = 2.471 acres
6 tonnes / 2.471 = 2.428 tonnes CO2 captured per acre per average year
Total area of hutter managed woodland = approx 15 acres
2.428 tonnes x 15 acres = 36.42 tonnes CO2 captured per average year
Calculation of net carbon captured by hutters at North Cloich Woodland:
As shown above, if all 15 hutters were to travel alone by car to the hutting site most weeks of the year (unlikely, because some may only visit once per month) they would collectively emit in total 5.6 tonnes CO2 per year.
36.42 tonnes captured minus 5.6 tonnes emitted = net 30.82 tonnes carbon captured by the 15 acres of hutter managed native trees per average year.
Slightly less net carbon may be captured if some trees are unusually slow to establish. Slightly more net carbon may be captured if some hutters arrive without a car.
If another margin for uncertainty is applied to this calculation to further reduce the net annual carbon capture by say 20% (30 tonnes -20%) = 24 tonnes of carbon would be captured per year, still highly desirable and better than a merely ‘sustainable’ achievement.
The environmental sustainability of the hutting site is therefore not in doubt.
Next: Apply for a Hut
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