Free farm business and environmental audit for woodland creation

Landowners in the East and East Midlands have the opportunity to receive a free farm business and natural capital assessment.  

This initiative funded by the Forestry Commission is being delivered by our specialist advisors. Using land use models, areas that can be enhanced by investment by natural capital are identified for woodland creation and woodland enhancement. 

Approach

We understand that natural capital opportunities have to fit within current farming businesses. Our approach to the environmental audit encompasses a detailed review of the existing farm business, including accounts and performance analysis, land tenure, finance obligations, resources, performance and assets. 

Once we have an understanding of your business, we combine it with Natural Capital Research's NatCap Map platform. This sets out the baseline natural capital assets (land cover, soils and topography) and ecosystem services (carbon storage and sequestration, flood risk reduction, soil erosion protection, clean water etc.) for your land holding, providing estimates of the ecosystem services they provide.

This assessment will then highlight areas on farm that are suitable for tree planting that maximise habitat connectively and biodiversity.

We can then discuss the grant funding opportunities for woodland creation, carbon capture and other amenities that woodland can provide.

What participants receive:

-          A Natural Capital Baseline assessment of their individual holding

-          Specialist woodland opportunity mapping specific to their land area

-          One to one on-farm meeting with a specialist advisor to discuss the impacts and opportunities on their individual business

-          A Farm Advisory Audit report identifying opportunities and plans to implement 

This exercise will enable landowners to independently consider alternative natural capital-based income streams for their farm business, develop a greater understanding of environmental scheme income and have screened the suitability of woodland creation based financial initiatives in the context of their specific farming model.

For further information on this initiative please contact william.higgins@brown-co.com or greg.beeton@brown.co.com