The organisation said woodland officers were already dealing with a substantial backlog of current work, while existing action to address England’s forest pests and diseases was “mostly inadequate and requires greater resources, including supporting research”.
The new funding, announced by environment minister Owen Paterson on Monday, will see 250,000 young ash trees planted over 25 sites in a bid to find chalara-resistant trees.
Mr Paterson described the project, backed by laboratory research to investigate genetic resistance to chalara, as unprecented in its scope and the first of its kind and scale in Europe.
Saplings bought by the government will be planted in the east and south-east of England. While welcoming Defra’s initiative, Confor said the new project, which will see replanting on an individual site-by-site basis to be approved by the Forestry Commission (FC), raised practical questions.
“Nurseries can only guess as to how much take-up there will be and which species to sow this year, assuming seed availability, and assuming the FC system can move faster than it currently is,” it said.
“Otherwise nothing will be approved.”
Confor is also concerned woodland management and creation work will lose out as a result of the project.
The organisation said a rapid review of the disease spread situation may be required in May/June when ash tree buds burst.
