20,000 free trees to give away...
RIGHT now we are facing the gravest ever threat to modern life on Earth and scientists are clear that urgent action is needed.
What we do now will shape the future of our planet for generations to come.
All of us can make a difference in the fight against climate change and today we are helping you do just that.
Working with the Woodland Trust, we are giving away 20,000 native trees – two each to 10,000 readers – for you to plant at home or in your community.
It marks the beginning of a brilliant new MillionMirrorTrees campaign, which we are working on with A Trillion Trees, a joint venture of the world’s largest conservation charities – WWF, BirdLife International and Wildlife Conservation Society who are together fighting deforestation and working to restore forests around the world.
Ben Fogle joined in by planting a mountain ash at Queen Katherine School in Kendal, Cumbria, yesterday, with Paul Crossland from Hayes Garden World, Ambleside, who supplied the tree.
The campaign touched the TV star who fears precious regions he has visited,
such as Antarctica, may “become extinct geographies”. He said: “Anyone can plant a tree. It doesn’t have to cost anything. This is why I back the Mirror’s campaign.”
Our aim is to plant at least one million trees over five years, and help protect the ones we have. But this is just a start.
Just 13% of the UK is covered in trees, compared to the EU average of 37%.
Globally 10 billion more are cut down than are planted with Amazon and Indonesian rain forests being devastated.
According to the Committee on Climate Change, the Government’s statutory advisers on the climate crisis, the UK should have 1.5billion new trees by 2050 to meet its net zero carbon target.
But last year just 1,420 hectares of its 5,000-hectare yearly target were planted.
Daily Mirror editor Alison Phillips urged readers to “make a difference”.
She said: “It can feel the climate crisis is so extreme there is nothing normal people at home, like us, can do about it.
“But planting a tree will have some impact. And raising the issue of climate crisis in your community is invaluable.”
Darren Moorcroft, head of the Woodland Trust which is holding a national planting day on November 30, said trees were “warriors” against climate change.
“We hope Mirror readers apply for trees and dig for all our futures,” he said.
Thirty years on, Olivia NewtonJohn still vividly remembers the devastating sight – and smell – of the Amazon burning before her. Flying into the heart of the rainforest by helicopter as fires raged around her, she was greeted by scenes of desolation when they eventually found a clearing to land.
“Everything was gone. I mean acres and acres and acres, just burnt. Nothing,” she says. “And the sun was so intense, nothing could grow.”
Her foray into the Amazon all those years ago was part of a life-long love affair with its natural beauty.
It was there in June 2008 that she tied the knot with environmentalist John Easterling in a secret ceremony on a Peruvian mountaintop dressed in traditional Inca clothes .
John, who spent decades working in the Amazon, wore a poncho while she wore a “matrimonial manta”, similar to a small shawl.
The ceremony was conducted in the ancient language of Quechua.
It was in the hilltops of Peru where John and Olivia enjoyed an unconventional first date after he invited her to join him for a trip.
Given her affinity with the region, it’s not surprising the recent devastating fires which ripped through the Amazon caused her profound distress.
“I could barely watch it, it was just terrible, not least as it holds such beautiful memories,” she says.
Having seen at first hand the fires, she is glad the world is finally waking up, albeit too late. “I went a long time ago – 30 years ago – it was happening then,” she sighs.
“As Jane Fonda was saying the other day, we’ve had this information 30, 40, 50 years but no one’s really paid attention because we couldn’t see it. Now we can.”
Olivia was speaking as she backed our MillionMirrorTrees project by planting a tree in the grounds of her Californian home an hour north of Santa Barbara.
“I am delighted you are doing this, it’s incredibly important,” she says. “And now with the horrendous loss of forest in the Amazon, it becomes even more so. We need to be planting out every block that we see.”
Surrounded by rolling hills and lush vegetation, Olivia relishes the tranquillity afforded by her home where she lives with John, a dog, cats and chickens.
But like many in California she has been affected “many times” by forest fires that have ravaged parts of the state. She once had to flee her home after getting a call from neighbours that a fire was close by.
“When I lived in Malibu as well, it was pretty frightening a few times,” she says. “On one occasion the fire even jumped the freeway. It was very bad and we had to evacuate there too.”
She is heartbroken by the situation in Australia, where the UK-born star moved to aged five, where drought is causing misery to farmers and livestock.
“I can’t bear the thought that these animals are trapped or can’t get away,” she says. Her Aussie
Our Tom with Olivia