Think of your family’s future and join the Big Climate Fightback
Plant a tree on November 30
WE think of Britain as a green and pleasant land, but It's nothing Ike as leafy as it should be. The UK's woodland cover is around 13 per cent.
The average across the EU is closer to 37 per cent. There are lots of reasons why this is. Wood has always been valuable as a building material — for ancient homes, as well as furniture and even Admiral Nelson's ships, for example.
During the two World Wars, much of our precious woodland was lost because it was so hard to import materials, so we had to use what we had. Today, cities are increasingly bursting their green belts as more and more of us need places to live.
But it's not just sentiment that makes us want to see more trees in Britain. Apart from woodland being an attractive place to spend time, there's a practical benefit that comes from trees, too.
According to 2017 figures from the Office for National Statistics, the removal of air pollution through plant life, mainly trees, has added a total of 1,238 years to people's lives.
But poor planting rates mean that
rather than more trees, were experiencing net deforestation, with huge areas being felled but not replanted.
It's time to fight back.
The UK's largest woodland conservation charity, the Woodland Trust, is le ath% the Big Climate Fight back, an initiative to get as many people as possible planting trees to combat climate change, as well as air pollution.
Climate change seems like a huge and complex issue and it's hard to see how one person can help. But if we all act together we can make a real difference.
Swiss university ETH Ziirich says a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today.
No one stands up for woods and trees in the UK like the Woodland Trust. By 2025, the charity aims to have planted a tree for every person in Britain.