City of Trees kicks off the celebrations for National Tree Week in Greater Manchester by hosting a week of activity across the region, culminating in a ‘tree planting party’, which will help to create a 4,000 tree new community woodland.
Led by The Tree Council, National Tree Week takes place 26th November – 4th December, and inspires thousands of people across Britain to join forces and plant over a million trees during the UK’s largest tree festival.
City of Trees is leading the charge in Greater Manchester, hosting activity across the City region, ending with a planting party on Saturday 3 December in Oldham, alongside a free tree giveaway.
Tony Hothersall, City of Trees, said: “Trees deliver a whole range of benefits from helping to tackle climate change, improving our health and wellbeing as well as providing essential habitats for wildlife.
“We urge the community to come along and get involved at one of our events – planting is a fantastic way to connect with the nature on our doorstep and something we want everyone to experience”.
He adds; “We hope to show people how important trees are, why we need to plant more of them, and protect the ones we have”.
City of Trees aims to plant a 3 million trees, one for every man, woman and child that lives in the City Region, within a generation.
The National Tree Week celebrations include:
– Tree and shrub planting at Bickershaw, Wigan – Thursday 24 and Saturday 26 November
– Community Woodland creation at Gorse Covert, Wythenshawe – Thursday 1 December
– Planting party at Snipe Clough, Oldham – Saturday 3 December
The planting forms part of The Snipe Clough Project, with City of Trees working to transform the former landfill site in Oldham into native woodland planting over 4,000 trees, creating a green space for walkers, cyclists and members of the local community.
The project has been supported by Oldham Council, TD Direct Investing, The Stoller Charitable Trust, and the Woodland Trust.
The National Tree Week campaign has its roots in the public response to the Dutch Elm Disease crisis of the 1960s, which destroyed millions of trees.
Communities across the UK answered the call to help replenish their depleted treescapes by taking part in the groundbreaking Plant a Tree in ‘73 initiative, with the first ever National Tree Week taking place in 1975 to try and lessen the impact of these devastating changes to the view across urban and rural landscapes.
Forty-plus years later, landscapes are changing again as new diseases take hold. In particular, ash dieback has already begun its progress across the country as trees in towns and gardens start to succumb to the disease.
Tree Council Director-General Pauline Buchanan Black commented: “As time goes on and more ash trees are affected, views from windows and on roads all over the country will take on a different aspect.
“By planting a community woodland somewhere that it can be seen and enjoyed by others, not only is it possible to change the physical view but also, to influence the hearts and minds of anyone who sees it so that they in turn take action to change the view for future generations.”
For more information on what’s happening during National Tree Week visit www.cityoftrees.org.uk
