Woodlands and trees make a big difference not just to our lives, but potentially to those of future generations too. The environments they create offer opportunities for people, businesses and biodiversity.

Trees provide us with more than 5,000 products that people use every day.

It is therefore extremely concerning that the Welsh timber industry is facing a terminal threat caused by decades of under-planting.

Since 2001, the area of productive conifer woodland in Wales has fallen sharply, fuelling concern over the country’s long-term supply of timber.

The Welsh Government's latest Woodlands for Wales Indicators report revealed that, in the year to March 2016, just 348 acres of new woodland were created.

This was significantly down from the 1,626 acres that were planted on average in each of the five years to 2014.

Six years ago just 4% of forestry businesses were worried about the lack of future timber, but that figure is thought to have climbed rapidly in recent years amid fears for the long-term viability of a sector worth now £528.6m-a-year.

I have met with timber companies in my own constituency who are concerned that action has not been taken by the Welsh Government to ensure sufficient crop for the future and I have been raising this in the Senedd on their behalf for months.

There are many thousands of jobs in the wood manufacturing industry in Wales that rely on timber production and it is deeply worrying that unless immediate action is taken, the timber industry won’t have a future here in Wales.

Tree-planting ticks all the boxes. It is a sustainable industry, it helps prevent flooding, it stores carbon and it is a vital part of the rural economy with a potential for growth. That’s why it needs to be firmly on the political agenda.

When I recently visited Clifford Jones Timber plant in Ruthin, which is headed by Richard Jones, the third generation of the family, he said: “Within 20 years the supply of timber from Wales is going to drop off a cliff because of a lack of planting since 1990.

“By then we will have missed the boat. But if Natural Resources Wales (NRW) could step up the planting of conifers, it would send a signal to the industry that there is a future for it. We have the ideal growing conditions for them.”

There is now so much demand for timber. As well as traditional customers in the farming and construction industries, there is a massive new demand for biomass fuel for energy. It is therefore vital that the Welsh Government develops a strategy to ensure that all these demands can be met.

It is time for those in power listen to and act on the concerns of our timber industry and work to maximise the output of the industry and its economic contribution to Wales in the future.