Andrew Baker, Senior Operational Manager with the Woodland Carbon Code, provides an insight into forest management regimes and discusses how they work with the Woodland Carbon Code.

What is a management regime? 

A forest management regime refers to a set of practices and guidelines used to maintain and enhance the health, productivity and biodiversity of a forest. It typically involves activities like planting, thinning, harvesting, protecting against pests or diseases and managing forest resources sustainably over time, ensuring ecological balance, social improvements and economic benefits.

Why are they important? 

Implementing appropriate forest management regimes means that forests can provide essential services like carbon sequestration, habitat for wildlife, water regulation and soil conservation.

Additionally, well-managed forests support industries like timber and recreation without depleting or damaging the forest, ensuring long-term environmental health and economic benefits.

What regimes are allowed under the code? 

The Woodland Carbon Code allows for a variety of woodland management regimes. These include, but are not limited to, thinning, clearfelling, coppicing and continuous cover forestry. The UK Forestry Standard provides information on how and when these management regimes should be adopted.

How do I plan which regime to use? 

This should be a decision made alongside a forestry professional and will depend on what your desired outcomes are for the woodland. Obviously, carbon sequestration and storage is going to be one of your objectives, but depending on local site conditions/demands, you may want to focus more on climate change resilience to pests and diseases than flood mitigation, for example, which may lead to different management regimes being adopted.

Do some work better for storing carbon?

The answer to this depends on your individual project and what effect each management regime would likely have on the woodland more generally. For example, if the yield classes (growth rates) of the trees in your woodland are likely to significantly increase if a thinning management regime is adopted, then this could increase the total carbon yield of the forest, while simultaneously providing co-benefits such as improved resilience and timber income. 

However, in other situations, a lighter touch and less interventionist approach may improve the forest carbon over the course of the project when compared to other management regimes.

It really depends on what has been planted and a host of other factors. Projects under the code that plan thinning from the start often have fewer Pending Issuance Units allocated to them initially, as heavier thinning regimes are likely to reduce the total carbon stock in comparison to lighter thins or non-intervention management regimes. 

However, if this heavier thinning regime leads to significantly more growth than initially predicted, you will be given extra Woodland Carbon Units at later verifications to reflect what has actually been sequestered!

Do different regimes need different resources e.g. time and cost?

Certainly. Site conditions will affect this more than anything. 

Some management regimes, like thinning woodlands in difficult to access or steep areas, can be prohibitively expensive, so this must be considered right at the planting design stage of the woodland. Conversely, thinning of commercial conifer stands or gradual thinning of high quality native broadleaved woodlands can be very profitable. 

The more that can be designed and planned for before any trees are even planted, the less costly and more profitable these activities become.

Can you change management regimes under the code?

Absolutely, although things can become a little tricky if carbon units have already been sold up front and the change in management is going to reduce the carbon units allocated to the project. 

For instance, let’s say you initially had a woodland where no thinning had been planned and you were allocated 500 Pending Issuance Units. At a later date, you then decide that thinning is more appropriate and you want to update your carbon calculator to reflect that. For this example, this leads to a reduction in the number of Pending Issuance Units allocated to the project to 400 units. If you hadn’t sold the original 500 units early on, then this change can quite easily be changed at verification. If they had all been sold, however, then depending on what you had agreed in the sales contract, you might find it more difficult to change management regime at this point.

To avoid this happening, we encourage project developers to be conservative throughout their applications, especially in the carbon calculator. If you think there’s a possibility of the woodland being thinned, then it may be better to submit it at validation as thinned rather than non-intervention. If you later decide not to thin, we can always give you more carbon units!

Where can I find more information?

Our website has a wealth of information on the Woodland Carbon Code, including information on how to enter specific management regimes into your carbon calculator.