Evokation: Woodland Conservation

In the UK, in neighbouring counties as near as possible to where I live.

A developing country in partnership with local NGOs.

The UK's ancient woodland is less than 2% of UK land area, and great amounts have been lost in the last 100 years. In addition the UK is the least wooded country in Europe (12% compared to average of 44%).

Furthermore I love woods. Woods are a haven for biodiversity and support more species than other habitats (or buildings !).

The challenge is to purchase a wood and maximise its financial return to invest in a combination of expansion through purchasing land and planting, purchasing other woods in the UK and later to assist in conservation of forests in developing countries through use of the profits raised in the UK.

The idea is to initally purchase a small wood somewhere not too far away. There are already brokers for this e.g. here or here

The next stage is to then sell the woodland in parcels as gifts, tax investments and possibly voluntary carbon offsets (based on a low estimate of their ability to fix carbon with future growth and on science), all of which have been done before (sometimes by for profit companies).

Maximising revenue from the woodland as much as possible through sustainable use of wood for crafting and events (nature walks, survival workshops, other) if possible or other ideas.

Maximising the biodiversity value of the woodland will be a key goal.

The idea of selling woods in parcels is not new. Due diligence will have to be undertaken to see how successful other initiatives have been. A new idea is to sell a fraction of the wood in such a manner that all buyers would have to agree to sell off the woodland. As a part share would be put into trust, subsequent selling of the woodland would be guarded against.

The parcels will be sold as gifts and priced to return a profit compared to the purchase prices and overheads. A key question concerns if people will be willing to pay this price.

Money to buy the wood will be the greatest initial challenge. One potential method is make a share offer in the company / social enterprise to raise non-loan, non-debt finance. The investment would be marketed as an investment in the environment, with a small dividend if the idea can support it. There are already examples of many millions of pounds having been raised through share offers for social and environmental projects that have no chance of making a return. Grants and donations can also be sought. A task is to investigate whether a private, public, or community share offer method is best.

Marketing the gifts and carbon offsets will be the key task.

When money has been recouped, a second wood can be purchased and the process repeated, or a new wood planted.

A key partner will be the Woodland Trust.

A later phase, when profitable, will be to adapt the idea to purchase or protect woodland/forests in developing countries. This will involve different solutions especially the involvement of the local community in protecting the woodland as a means of development. This would likely be in partnership with existing NGOs as identified in the LEARN1 task. The idea is to use the money raised in the UK to finance the non-UK activities.

An 8.5 acre wood can be bought for ~ £30k. This is £34,400 m2. Assuming overheads of 40% each m2 of wood would have to be sold for more than £1.20 to break even which seems possible as you are selling the idea of protecting a woodland rather than the actual land as an investment.
Furthermore carbon offsets may be sellable. Interestingly the Woodlands Trust just launched a carbon offset scheme for the similiar purpose of growing woods.

The money would be used for professional advice on setting up the appropriate form of social enterprise, and share offer methodology. However it is likely this could be obtained for free with the World Bank's assistance and therefore better to spend the $1000 on other people's projects that directly promote development, as £700 ($1000) won't go far in the UK ! This is part of the idea of phase 2 of the project, namely to take advantage of exchange rates to assist efforts in developing countries on conserving forests and promoting development.

The size of the task maybe greater than time available (due to already working full time). However the initial first wood purchase is achievable and it is thought that this should be possible to carry out, albeit over time. However it is possible that I would work in this area (woodland creation) in the future, but this can not be answered at this point in time.

The first step will be the creation of an outline project plan.

One of the main things about posting the idea here is that I then need to do something about it !
However the feeling that it could remain only an idea and not a real proposition is definitely there, so this needs to be dealt with. The first step is likely the hardest one. I already work full time in low carbon energy projects but I have always wanted to help protect woodlands. So a gradual approach is needed, at least initially.

Another pitfall is opportunity cost. This is only one of the ideas that I have, that include concentrating on helping the practical transition to a low carbon society either working in National or International organisations or setting up a small social enterprise and working in a smaller geographical area. However buying a wood to help conserve it is a long term pipe dream and not impossible to implement as just another project forming part of a larger work on carbon reduction. The question of scale of impact is an important one, as is having fun and following what inspires you ! More work to do on taking this forward.