UK Forestry Planting and Restocking Statistics 1976-2020

UK national statistics detail new planting and restocking of woodland from 1976 to 2020. The data are broken down by UK constituent nations, planting type, tree species group, and land ownership sector. It provides supporting data for official publications like Forestry Statistics and Forestry Facts & Figures.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in UK woodland expansion based on annual planting data.
• Comparing public and private sector contributions to forestry based on ownership sector breakdown.
• Assessing the balance between conifer and broadleaf planting for biodiversity and commercial goals.
• Evaluating regional forestry performance across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
• Supporting national statistics releases on woodland area and forestry activity.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent 45-year time series from 1976 to 2020.
• Offers detailed breakdowns by geography, planting type, species, and ownership.
• Serves as official supporting data for UK National Statistics releases.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low: column names, row counts, file sizes, and license information are unknown.
• There is a conflict in the temporal coverage described across platform entries, with some citing data only to 2015, 2016, 2017, or 2018, while others extend to 2019 or 2020.
• The dataset's structure and specific metrics are inferred from descriptions, as no column list is provided.

Provenance

Source

Forestry Commission (and its devolved administration equivalents: Natural Resources Wales, Forestry and Land Scotland, Forest Service)

Collection Method

Likely compiled from official forestry surveys and administrative records.

Time Range

1976 to 2020

Freshness

Last updated metadata dates range from 2026-06-29 22:11:09 to 2026-06-29 22:11:14, but these appear to be system-generated timestamps unrelated to the actual data, which covers up to 2020.

Geography

United Kingdom, with breakdowns for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and UK totals.