New initiatives announced as International Year of Forests welcomed

TREES FOR LIFE
News release For immediate release: Tuesday 11th January 2011

Welcoming 2011 as the United Nations’ International Year of Forests, conservation charity Trees for Life today announced a series of new initiatives in its award-winning work to restore Scotland’s Caledonian Forest, and called on people to take advantage of the year to reconnect with Britain’s forests and woodlands.

Alan Watson Featherstone, Executive Director of Trees for Life, said:
“Forests are very special and important places, for people as well as wildlife. They are often refuges for endangered animals and plants, they help to tackle climate change by soaking up carbon dioxide, and they are inspiring places to visit.

“2011 is an ideal opportunity for people to enjoy visiting forests and woodlands whether for simple walks, wildlife spotting, or just enjoying the peace and quiet. With 2011 also being the European Year of Volunteering, it’s a great time to take practical action through on-the-ground projects such as our Conservation Holiday programme.”

To help people enjoy visits to the Caledonian Forest, in May Trees for Life will open new visitor facilities at its Dundreggan Estate in Glen Moriston near Loch Ness, Inverness-shire. The recent discovery of many rare, endangered and presumed extinct species at Dundreggan has established its reputation as a ‘lost world’ for the Highlands.

Trees for Life hopes that its work in 2011 to expand native woodland on the estate will help to attract red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) to Dundreggan. The species has not been recorded on the estate, but is present elsewhere in Glen Moriston, in Forestry Commission Scotland’s Inverwick Forest across the River Moriston, and to the east at Bhlaraidh.

Other plans for Dundreggan include experimental work to establish a population of twinflower (Linnea borealis), a rare flowering plant associated with the Caledonian Forest and a priority for conservation.

Trees for Life has also made a commitment to planting 100,000 trees during 2011, as part of an ongoing pledge to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Billion Tree Campaign. Major milestones this year will include the 20th anniversary of Trees for Life’s first tree planting in April 1991, and also the planting of the charity’s one-millionth tree.

“If every person in Britain were to plant just one tree in 2011, we’d have the equivalent of a large new forest of 60 million trees by year end – that’s the difference we can make in the International Year of Forests. A rewarding way to take part is to come and volunteer with Trees for Life, and plant hundreds of trees yourself,” said Alan Watson Featherstone.

More volunteers will be able to support this work than in any previous year through a programme of 47 Conservation Holiday Weeks, which allow people from all backgrounds and ages to help restore Scotland’s natural heritage at various outstanding locations in the Highlands, alongside a new programme of local volunteer day trips called ‘Green Days Out’.

Today the UK is one of Europe’s least wooded countries, with only four per cent of native woodland cover. In the Highlands, the Caledonian Forest covers just one per cent of its former maximum area.

Through Trees for Life, people can mark the International Year of Forests and their own special occasions by funding dedicated trees and groves. See www.treesforlife.org.uk or call 0845 458 3505. For information on the International Year of Forests see www.un.org/en/events/iyof2011.

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Notes to editors
1.    Trees for Life aims to restore the Caledonian Forest to an area of
1,500 square kilometres in the Scottish Highlands west of Inverness.
2.    Since planting its first trees in 1991 in Glen Affric, Trees for Life
has planted over 924,000 trees. Its awards include 1991 UK Conservation Project of the Year, the Millennium Marque in 2000 and Top 10 Conservation Holidays worldwide in 2009.
3.    Trees for Life’s £1.65 million purchase of Dundreggan in 2008 saw the
site become one of the largest areas of land in the UK bought for forest restoration. Subsequent surveys have revealed that the estate is home to over 50 species that are priorities for conservation in the UK’s Biodiversity Action Plan, thereby underlining its importance for conservation.