by Cllr Mike Eddy, Deal Town Council
You know that the messages about the need for more trees must be getting through, when the Saturday Guardian (16 April 2022) has 2 pages on “the life-changing magic of planting trees” in its Lifestyle section. And in the list of 5 things you can do to help, they suggest lobbying your local council for more trees and keeping an eye open for greenwashing by questioning the types of species and their future safeguarding.
On the front cover of the May/June edition of British Archaeology (published by the Council for British Archaeology), the headline is “A message from the Neolithic – Don’t Plant Trees”. But rather than not planting trees, the real message from the Neolithic is let nature do the planting by managing our existing woodland. Mature coppiced and pollarded trees provide richer habitats for other flora and fauna than fields of saplings. Managed woodlands also soak up more carbon and provide jobs, while the coppiced poles can be turned in to a variety of useful items.
And the New Scientist for 16 April devotes several pages to a plan to set aside 30% of the planet’s land and sea area for nature by 2030. “30 by 30”, as the plan is called, will be a tough ask but 30% is regarded as the bare minimum to allow healthy biodiversity to be maintained.