The South Downs National Park has smashed its target of planting 100,000 trees by the middle of this decade – and has now set its sights on planting at least one million more.
The huge tree planting drive includes a much-needed resurgence of the iconic elm tree, a lost beacon of the British countryside due to elm disease. A total of 3,500 disease-resistant elms will be in the ground by the end of this winter, providing havens for threatened species such as the White Letter Hairstreak butterfly.
The Trees for the Downs campaign launched at the end of 2019 and has far exceeded all expectations, raising over £400,000 from donors and members of the public to kickstart nature restoration across the South East region. This winter alone, over 40,000 new trees are going into the ground, bringing the total to 117, 700 trees across 150 sites in Sussex and Hampshire. The tree planting is a mixture of woodland, civic and community planting, hedging and orchards – all providing a range of oxygenating, carbon-storing trees to provide homes for birds, mammals and insects.
But the campaign, led by the South Downs Trust, the official charity of the National Park, is just getting started. A target has been set to plant 1m more trees between now and 2035, focusing on identifying suitable sites for tree planting, including new woodland and hedges. The potential for planting trees in the region is huge. A major study three years ago covered just over 439,000 hectares – all of Sussex plus Hampshire’s portion of the National Park – and found almost 23,000 hectares is highly suitable for creating new woods – around five per cent of the land area. The potential new area of woodland – twice the size of Manchester – could store up to 37,667,500 tonnes of CO₂ after 100 years.
None of the tree planting would have been possible without significant support from businesses and the public. Among the donors are: Aspinal of London, the Boltini Trust, Boomtown Festival, Chalk Cliff Trust, Friends of the South Downs, Higgidy, Jude’s, London to Brighton EV Rally, Nyetimber, OSB Group, South East Water, Sykes Cottages, Southern Co-op, University of Sussex, Willmott Dixon, together with founding patrons of the charity and hundreds of members of the public.
A fresh round of expressions of interest are being invited for new tree planting in the National Park next winter. Visit here for more information.
You can donate to Trees for the Downs here.
