Counting the cost of deer policy

With no financial reward for professional management, could soaring deer numbers undermine plans to plant 11million trees?

- RICHARD NEGUS

Jim and Richard on a deer management mission in woods near Eye in Suffolk

The Government announced in 2018 that it will provide £50million of funding to plant 11million trees in England by 2022.

Much of this is to underpin the Woodland Carbon Guarantee, which encourages farmers and landowners to create new woodland in return for payments of woodland carbon units as these trees mature.

The chief aim of this mass tree planting, we are told, is to “leave the planet in a better state than we found it”. This will be achieved by the newly planted trees capturing carbon.

This funding is additional to the Countryside Stewardship Woodland Creation Grant, which focuses on the habitat benefits provided by woodland. So far so green. However, there is one rather deer-shaped elephant in the room.

Richard Negus and Jim Allen gralloch the deer before loading the carcass into their vehicle

Browsing on hedgerows

It is estimated that there are between 1.5million and 2million deer currently living in the UK. Most of us know that deer love eating fresh new tree growth. Thus, with 11million new saplings soon to arrive on the menu, rather than storing carbon or providing habitat, it would appear a large proportion of these trees will end up in a deer’s rumen.

Deer, when not munching tree growth, are often to be found browsing hedgerows. I spend the autumn and winter laying, planting and coppicing farmland hedges. Much of this is ultimately funded by you and I, the taxpayers, via money from Defra through their hedgerows and boundaries grants. It is usual that governments mitigate against damage to their investments.