BBC leads tree planting ‘for every child’
Gardeners across the UK are digging deep for BBC Countryfile’s Plant Britain, a two-year campaign to get the whole nation planting, to help tackle climate change.
The first goal is to plant 750,000 trees, one for every child who started primary school last year. The idea has the support of HRH The Prince of Wales, who said it was our ‘duty’ to plant trees for future generations. “Planting a tree means leaving a lasting legacy,” he said.
Presenter Matt Baker planted the first tree in the new five-hectare Countryfile Wood at the National Trust’s Quarry Bank, just outside Manchester. The wood is now home to 3,600 native broadleaf tree saplings, from oaks to sweet chestnuts.
The programme also supports urban tree-planting schemes in cities such as Bradford, West Yorkshire, where the council is enlisting the help of children to plant 55,000 trees in green spaces around the city. “Children are going to lead the way,” Countryfile’s Anita Rani told Gardeners’ World Magazine. “If you get a child to plant a tree, you’ve got them – you’ve engaged them with nature.”
The scheme is one of many tree-planting initiatives across the UK: the Woodland Trust
aims to plant 50 million trees by 2025, the National Trust 20 million by 2030, and Trees for Cities is one of the first environmental projects to be awarded a grant from the Government’s new £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund. The Government is about to publish its Tree Strategy for England, with plans to increase tree cover in England from 10 to 12 per cent by 2050. It has also pledged to plant 30,000 hectares of trees across the UK each year by 2025.
“It’s hugely ambitious and requires us to do things on a scale we’ve not done before,” Environment Minister Lord Zac Goldsmith told us. New funding includes £4 million for pilot studies looking at ways to plant trees outside existing woodlands. One pilot is testing ‘Miyawaki’ forests – densely planted, speciesrich mini-woodlands the size of a tennis court
– in city centres. “It’s more expensive to plant in cities, but the benefits are bigger,” says Lord Goldsmith. “They create links between different wildlife areas and give people access, too.”
Plant a tree and add it to the Countryfile log. You can also apply for a Golden Ticket to plant a tree with a Countryfile presenter at a Woodland Trust site. For details, visit bit.ly/plant-britain
Planting a tree means leaving a lasting legacy