The Scottish Government's plans to cover 25% of Scotland with trees by 2050 will concentrate on low-quality agricultural land but its new strategy says there should be expansion of urban woodlands too.
Its woodland expansion paper says doubling woodland creation to 10,000ha/y would generate up to £200m a year and there is scope for locking up an additional 4.4Mt/y of carbon by 2050.
"To reach our vision of 25% of Scotland being covered in woodland we need to create 650,000ha of new woodland, roughly 25 times the size of Edinburgh," said environment minister Michael Russell.
But the 28-page paper makes no mention of brownfield land although it does note woodland's potential for improving derelict, underused and neglected land and improving degraded or unsightly environments.
But although it stresses the importance of carbon sequestration, it admits that the science is incomplete.
It concedes that the planting of conifers on deep peat soils, widely practised in the past, led to loss of carbon and this is best done elsewhere.
High quality farmland is increasingly needed for food production so it sees the main target for planting will be low-quality farmland.
