Climate change: Free tree offered to every Welsh household
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Every household in Wales will be offered a free tree to plant in an effort to help tackle climate change.
People will have a choice of native species to plant in their gardens or have added to woodland on their behalf.
About 1.3 million trees will be made available by the Welsh government, in a scheme which will cost £2m.
Deputy climate change minister Lee Waters said the scheme could help, but there still needed to be a greater increase in planting trees.
"To meet our climate change targets, we have to plant 86 million trees by the end of this decade," he said.
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"That's an increase every year of 15-fold. So it's a hell of a challenge, as well as a climate emergency."
Scientists have debated whether tree planting should be used as a way of combatting carbon emissions, but Mr Waters said there was an urgent need to try new initiatives and the benefits of tree planting go beyond capturing carbon.
He said: "We are in a climate emergency and that word emergency is really important. We can't wait for a perfect solution and we have got to try stuff and we've got to do it fast.
"We know trees help deal with flooding, they help your well-being, there's very good evidence that being around trees reduces your stress and your blood pressure. There's evidence to show that areas with lots of trees have a lower crime rate."
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Jerry Langford, of Coed Cadw - the Woodland Trust in Wales - said he was confident people would succeed in nurturing trees in their gardens.
"Trees are tough actually," he said, "you've got to treat them pretty badly to kill a tree. So just a bit of tender loving care, and it will be fine.
"They need a supply of water and they need to need to make sure they don't get swamped by competing vegetation."
The trees will be available from five hubs from March, with a further 20 in the autumn of 2022.
Coed Cadw will plant the trees which people opt not to have in their gardens.
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