Planting thousands of trees to help tackle the climate change problem

THE UK’S largest woodland conservation charity is pledging to plant 50 million trees by 2025 to help tackle climate change.

The Woodland Trust is sending some 44,265 free trees to 233 community groups and schools across the West Midlands in the next few weeks and is backing up this commitment to tackling climate change with an initial Emergency Tree Fund of up to £1m to help local authorities plant trees and create woods.

In addition the charity is urging the nation to join with it by launching The Big Climate Fightback. It is calling on millions of people to plant trees throughout November – building support to sustain the biggest mass planting campaign the country has ever seen over the next few years.

Covid-hit 2020 has been a tough year for so many, not least in woodland conservation where UK tree planting is down (by 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2020 compared to 2019) and with more challenges on communities to get out to plant in large numbers.

All this despite the desperate need for more trees in the ground to fight climate change.

Last year the Government committed to plant 50 million trees each year until 2050 to achieve net zero carbon. Now is the time to turn words into action.

A year on from many big promises and statements about the need for more trees in order to achieve carbon net zero by 2050, they mainly remain just that, words. 2019 saw the

Woodland Trust plant more than four million trees. It was a great achievement but even that is well below what is needed in the UK to meet climate change targets.

Today I outline our commitment to establish 50m trees by 2025 to achieve our ten year aim of a tree for everyone in the UK.

This would more than double our most successful year ever and state our ambition to plant 10m trees a year to 2025 and further, 20 per cent of the entire UK yearly target as set out by the Government.

Our new Emergency Tree Fund is another bold step to achieving our tree planting aim – by offering local authorities an opportunity to get on board and join The Big Climate Fightback.

But we will require people from across all sections of society to help us achieve our ambition and today we start to mobilise that army.

Our role in tackling the climate crisis won’t rest - we know the clock is ticking and we must act now. Trees are nature’s most powerful weapons in the fight against climate change.

Together we can achieve remarkable things and I ask people today, please do your bit, join our climate change army, plant a tree in November, use your voice for trees and woods, support our cause and help us to continue our collective Big Climate Fightback.

Dr Darren Moorcroft,

Woodland Trust