Brief Description

Future Trees Trust is a registered charity based near Cirencester, dedicated to the improvement of broadleaved trees by conventional selective breeding. The aim of our work is to breed broadleaved trees to improve their resilience to disease, climate change adaptability, CO2 sequestration, growth rate and form. Our work is needed because current broadleaved woodlands are of insufficient quality, climatic adaptability and disease resilience to provide an economically viable timber resource, meaning that the UK imports 95% of the hardwood timber it uses.

Vision & Mission

By ensuring future tree populations are healthier, more disease resilient, adapted to climate change and more productive, we hope many more people will decide to plant more and better broadleaved trees rather than using their land for other purposes. More trees planted means many more benefits to our environment, our economy, countless species of woodland flora and fauna, the many thousands of people who work in the forestry and associated sectors, the millions of people that enjoy visiting them and not least to the very nature of our countryside.

Aims & Activities

It is environmental, economic and ecological madness that in Great Britain we have the climate, land, skills, experience and resources to grow many more of our own disease-resistant, healthy, wildlife-sustaining, productive timber trees, but do not do so. Our work is changing that.     

Our objectives are ambitious and our goals challenging, but the problems we aim to tackle are:- 

•	How to deliver more improved broadleaved trees through research
•	How to raise awareness of the benefits of using improved seeds or trees
•	How to establish a policy framework that encourages the planting of improved broadleaved trees  

We are well-placed to tackle these challenges because we are a collective of experts from across the forestry sector – our membership comprises foresters, researchers, geneticists, land-owners, nursery owners, timber processors, estate managers, academics and students. For 28 years we have been developing improvement programmes for seven species of broadleaved trees and our networks of supporters cover every area of forestry in Great Britain and Ireland. We can draw on many centuries of collective experience from our membership.

Facts & Figures

                            We improve broadleaved trees by selective breeding (not genetic modification!) to improve their health, survivability and desirable characteristics, making them more attractive to anyone planting trees. 

We do this by selecting superb 'parent' trees, taking seed or cuttings from them, grafting cuttings onto rootstocks or planting the seeds and creating orchards comprised solely of the progeny of superb trees. Ovcer many years, we monitor and care for these orchards, removing the poorer-performing trees, leaving only the very best trees to reproduce among themselves. Because the parent trees are selected from a wide geographic area, the genetic diversity of our orchards is higher than that of a naturally-ocurring woodland, which aids resilience to pests and diseases.  Healthier, more productive trees mean that more people will plant trees, and we all know that many more trees are needed to meet our climate change obligations!
                            

                            Our work will help anyone that has an interest in majestic broadleaved trees gracing our countryside for generations to come and the flora and fauna that make their homes in such woodlands. So the beneficiaries of our work include you, me, anyone that appreciates broadleaved woodlands (either to admire from afar as part of our landscape or, like me, to walk through with my family), and the thousands of species of woodland flora and fauna that thrive in well-managed broadleaved woodlands.
                            

Awards

No awards received