The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has announced (on 2nd December 2022) that it is making £499,000 available to plant trees in communities across the country in honour of the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. DEFRA will provide lead delivery partners of The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC).
As part of the national tree planting initiative in Her Majesty’s name – The Queen’s Green Canopy – funding of £499,000 will be provided for a special programme of planting to be delivered by QGC Partners including Trees for Cities, The Tree Council, The Conservation Volunteers and Earthwatch.
Working in cooperation with local authorities and communities, the funding will enable thousands of trees to be planted in over 60 locations across England, engaging communities that have limited access to nature and green spaces. The projects include:
o The Tree Council will plant 69,000 whips to create 14km of hedgerow in up to 50 locations, which will be chosen to increase biodiversity, local nature recovery and future flood alleviation.
o Trees for Cites UK will extend their “Forgotten Places” programme across five areas that are nature-deprived, planting a total of over 5,000 trees.
o Earthwatch will plant 1,800 trees to create three “Tiny Forests” in urban areas with low woodland cover. A Tiny Forest is a dense, fast-growing native woodland the size of a tennis court, and
o The Conservation Volunteers will plant 1,500 saplings and propagate native species, including 2,500 Oak acorns, in their nursery for planting in the future.
The trees planted will become part of the living legacy which is being created in honour of Queen Elizabeth through The Queen’s Green Canopy, which has inspired over a million trees to be planted across the country in her name.
The full press release is available on the GOV.UK website.
