In Scotland, 16 million trees have been felled to make way for wind power

15.7 million.That's how many trees there are in Scotland was shot down, from 2000 to today, to make way for the development of wind farms in the country.This was made known by the Scottish Government's Rural Affairs Secretary himself, who stated that he had initiated actual tree felling plans in order to build turbines for the generation of clean energy on public lands.The paradox is that the controversial initiative is part of the administration's plans to make Scotland zero emissions within the next decade.In fact, the government aims to add around 20,000 turbines in the coming years so as to be able to generate a total of 20 Gigawatts (GW) of clean energy.An ambitious strategy in terms of reducing climate-changing emissions which, however, does not explain and does not justify the need to reduce, on balance, the equivalent of a real forest.Since the beginning of the current century, with an average of 2,000 trees per hectare, the equivalent of at least 7,858 hectares has been deforested.

The trees in question would have been felled on land managed by the government agency Forestry and Land Scotland, responsible for managing the forests and lands of the British country.At the moment it is not clear why it was necessary to fell such a large quantity of trees, but what is certain is that the news sparked more than one protest.The current administration, in this regard, defended itself by insisting on the fact that everything was planned with respect for the woods and also thinking about "compensatory planting elsewhere".The agency in fact responded to the criticism by claiming to have planted it more than 500 million trees since 2000.True or not, the message sent to the population is not the best.The conversion to sustainability should, in principle and coherence, always go hand in hand with respect for nature, local populations and resources.

Thus, in the eyes of public opinion, the affair remains inconceivable.Promoting the green transition by deforesting is, however you want to see it, a contradiction.Many tree species in fact have strong carbon sequestration capabilities which already means that in itself contribute to mitigating ongoing climate change.In addition to this, trees, especially if native to the area, perform other important ecological functions, from protecting against erosion to supporting wildlife.And the more mature a tree is, the more it is able to carry out these and other ecosystem roles essential to biodiversity and human societies.It is no coincidence that those who have harshly criticized this policy have underlined that the planting of new trees, on the contrary, requires considerable effort and active management, which is not always implemented.The result is that, where a specimen manages to reach the point of self-sustaining, years pass before the ecological balance is restored.Suffice it to say that numerous young trees are needed to absorb the same amount of carbon as a single mature tree.

[by Simone Valeri]