Our Mission

We are an organisation dedicated to promoting resilient, healthy and productive forests and woodlands by creating genetically diverse breeding populations of tree species.

Our Vision

We envision that all productive forests and woodlands in the UK will contain a proportion of selected or genetically improved trees to enhance diversity and resilience to climate change, pests and diseases. The wood they produce will be used in the construction of net zero carbon buildings, locking up carbon for decades and helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Trees with improved growth and form will have an increased rate of carbon sequestration and can be used for a wider range of wood products that act as long-term carbon stores. Such forests should be an essential part of a multi-faceted approach to climate change.

Members of Future Trees Trust visiting Alba nursery in 2011

Our history

Founded in 1991 at the Department of Plant Sciences of the University of Oxford, the British and Irish Hardwoods Trust (BIHIP) – now re-branded as Future Trees Trust – became a voluntary collaboration of many of Britain and Ireland’s foremost tree scientists and practitioners from all sectors of forestry.

Today, we have trial sites across the UK where we test material from carefully selected superior parent trees of seven species. Our researchers monitor their development over many years. Seed from the plus trees are planted out in replicated progeny trials to test the performance of the parents across many environments.  They are assessed over several years, and the best performing individuals are retained in the breeding programme, and the poorer ones removed.

But it’s not just about the science. We also lobby the British forestry industries and hope to create a fundamental culture change within that sector towards planting of improved trees.

We have only three full-time members of staff, so our overheads are minimal but our research costs money. In 2019/20, we spent £191,752 on research.

Improved trees grow faster, produce better quality timber, improve final timber yields by up to 20%, will show better disease resistance and resilience, are likely to remain healthy for longer, be adapted to a changing climate and sequester more carbon.

So using improved trees will be the natural choice for anyone planting trees.

Future Trees Trust Improved Birch Tree planted one year after the Douglas Fir beside it.