New funding has been donated by global hygiene and health company, Essity to support the Woodland Trust in carrying out research into forestry impacts on water.

The £75k will help the organisation measure, verify and deepen its understanding of the impacts of nature-based solutions on water quality and flood management.

Snaizeholme, where research will take place, is a habitat restoration and nature recovery project, situated near the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

The Trust plans to include the site under its FSC forest management certification in the future, as well as getting it audited against FSC’s Ecosystem Services Procedure.

Jo Pybus, sustainability reporting manager for Essity UK says: “Improving and protecting our wider ecosystems is critical and the ability to quantify the ecosystems impacts of investments will only increase the understanding of how this can best be achieved.

“The wider learnings will be invaluable in how we, and others, can act together with impact now and in the future.”

This research represents the first project of its kind for the Woodland Trust, which hopes ‘it will be the first of many across the UK’ undertaken by the Trust.