A leafy Warwickshire for all residents to enjoy moves an important step forward as Warwickshire celebrates a successful tree planting season across the county.
With the 2021/22 tree planting season – October 2021 to April 2022 – now complete, data provided by the West Midlands Combined Authority’s Virtual Forest mapping platform has revealed wide-spread tree-planting across the county.
Based on data provided by the platform, in total there were at least 3,979 new trees and 1600 hedges planted across the length and breadth of Warwickshire during the 2021/22 tree-planting season.
Many of the trees that were planted during the season were funded using monies from the first round of the Green Shoots Community Climate Change Fund, such as the Children’s Forest at Leasowe Farm
It has recently been announced that the Green Shoots Fund is returning for a second round of funding and will be open for applications from Friday 17 June 2022 and more information for community and voluntary groups interested in applying for funding is available here: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/greenshootsfund
Warwickshire County Council has ambitious tree planting plans for coming years that will see a tree for every resident planted across the county. This tree planting has been strategically planned to restore parts of forests and wooded areas that have been long lost to time, such as the ancient Forest of Arden, which once covered most of the county and beyond into Staffordshire and Worcestershire.
To this end, the Council was recently successful – along with partners in the District and Borough Councils – in their bid for £212k from the Forestry Commission's Local Authority Treescape Fund to plant 2,000 standard trees. These native trees will be restoring hedgerows on local authority-owned farms and public open space in the more rural areas of the county.
This tree planting will play a significant role in contributing to the Council's commitment to address the global climate change emergency and will restore the Ancient Arden Landscape and other landscape character areas while improving biodiversity by creating extensive new habitats for wildlife.
Trees are valuable for many reasons: they capture carbon from the atmosphere and harmful particulates from the air we breathe. They create shade when it's very hot, and they help reduce the risk of flooding. They also create habitats for wildlife from the moment they are planted, until long after they have died. Studies have also shown that planting them, and getting out amongst them, is also great for physical and mental wellbeing.
Cllr Heather Timms, Portfolio Holder for Heritage, Culture and the Environment, said: “There are no greater challenges facing humanity than those posed by the climate emergency. The response to this crisis cannot be met by local or national governments acting alone. It will require a concerted effort by all of us, making changes, large and small, to reverse the damage that we have done to our planet and its ecosystems. Tree planting will be integral to this response, which is why it is so heartening to see so many new trees planted in Warwickshire during the last season.
“The Woodlands Trust have stated that to meet the UK’s carbon net-zero target, it will need to plant at least 1.44 million hectares of new forestry across the country. In Warwickshire, we are fully committed to playing our part in this huge tree planting challenge.”
More information about the WMCA Virtual Forest can be found here: https://virtualforest-tfwm.hub.arcgis.com/pages/tree-planting-groups
For more information about how Warwickshire is facing the challenges of the climate change emergency, visit: https://www.warwickshireclimateemergency.org.uk/
Get the latest news about how Warwickshire County Council and partners are facing the challenge of the climate emergency and how you can get involved: http://eepurl.com/hrk-zf