As members of the Woodland Trust – a charity very close to my heart – I just received their spring edition of Broadleaf, bringing me all the latest news and updates and of course, ways in which everyone can help.

They also took the opportunity to tuck in their Annual Review, One Big Year – and with it an impressive array of things that had been going on, and in particular the ways small groups (some not so small) are changing things for the better.

Watch the Woodland Trust's You Tube Video
Inside Britain's Rainforests

With so much negativity in the news, I thought I’d share just some of their successes with you and ways in which small, different groups of people can create change.

1. In Belfast, visitor jumpers have leapt from 10,000 (before Covid) to a whopping 78,000 in 2021 – the Trust doubled its size and added access trails.  Meanwhile at Belfast Hills at Glas-na-Bradan, 1,300 volunteers dug in 47,000 saplings – and this has created a new reserve.  It will give vibrant new habitat to marsh fritillaries and meadow pipits and more.
   
   
2. Woodland Trust supporters have dug deep to the tune of £600,000 and as a result, Yonder Oak Wood will be the biggest new wood in Devon for years!  Situated in a valley, it has copses, streams and veteran oaks, and in time the hope is that dormice, adders and nightjars.  A mile long trail is being for wheelchairs and 60 locals have already volunteered to help!
   
   
3. In Greater Manchester, the BollyFit fitness club added 400 saplings to Stockport’s Mellor Rec last winter.  The 30 mums contributed to the Northern Forest project, the aim being to plant 5 million trees.  Last year, this project really took root in a major way, thanks to £23 million from Defra’s Nature for Climate Fund.  It means that the Trust and its partners from the Community Forest Trust can fully fund planting schemes from Liverpool to Hull!
   
   
4. There’s the Woodlands for Water – this is a £2.7 million masterplan to revive landscapes nationwide.  It is targeting 6 pathfinder catchments from Cornwall to Cumbria, including the Wye and Usk.  The Trust and its partners will be persuading landowners about the gains trees can bring to over 3000 hectares of waterway. 
   
   
5. Trust members and supporters enabled the Trust in Scotland to buy the Couldoran Estate, stretching across 18 square kilometres.  It was a shooting ground before, and £770,000 was donated by willing donors.   The plan is to scatter about a million trees there, and connect up fragments of ancient Caledonian pinewood.  The wildlife will have a field day!
   
   
6. The Welsh Government are bankrolling a £1.4 million drive to give every  household in Wales the chance to plant a sapling and watch it grow.  The spring pilot saw 5,000 oaks, alders, cherries and crab apples given out at five hubs nationwide, and 200,000 were available last November.  Get planting in Wales!!
   
   

Become a member of the Woodland Trust and support their work


There's plenty we can all do to get involved and help.   
Join in the bigger effort!
Be part of a group making changes for the better!

Sign the petition asking the Government to take better care of our trees.

You could donate your Nectar points to the Woodland Trust

Spotted an ancient tree?  Add it to the Ancient Tree Inventory!

 
All images ©Woodland Trust

If you love grizzly bears, take a look at US based Vital Ground Foundation, who are based in Montana.  

Their mission is “to protect and restore North America’s grizzly bear populations for future generations by conserving wildlife habitat and by supporting programmes which reduce the conflicts between bears and humans”. 

They have a vision of a permanently connected landscape which ensures the long-term survival of those gorgeous grizzly bears and the species in the range.  You can find out more about Vital Ground and their current porjects here  

They have some great news for us all!

Supporters enabled Vital Ground and landowners Greg and Lisa Levine to complete a new habitat protection project for grizzly bears and many other wildlife species in northwestern Montana!

Find out about grizzly bears here

The Grave Creek Project near the town of Eureka has helped conserve a key habitat corridor.  Sponsors may have participated in the Sponsor an Acre campaign, or given monthly, or made a year-end gift in 2022, but whichever action they took, they all contributed to this win for wildlife.  Wetlands, forests and meadows will be protected for species such as the grizzly, Canada lynx, native trout.  Find out more about the project here. 

Ways to support Vital Ground include making a monthly donation, making a one-off donation, sponsoring an acre, and buying something from their online shop.    And don't forget to check out Vital News, their official newsletter.

Visit The Vital Ground Foundation here.

In Victoria, Australia, the Koala Leaders Unite rally was held on 18 November at the state Premier’s Office.  

It was held a week before the state election there, and it took place at the then Premier Dan Andrew's office.  It was attended by almost 50 people and the Koala Clancy Foundation  and Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation are co-hosted the event in the hope that voters will consider koalas when they vote, and that the public rally will make the next government sit up and take action.

The Koala Leaders Unite rally was held just before
the election in Victoria, Australia outside the Premier's office.
Image © Danielle Judd

Koala Leaders gave 6 speeches stories about koala deaths and declines in the region – all driven by state government policies of neglect and contempt.and they included:

• Jessica Robertson, Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation & Conservation (Ballarat region) 
• Melinda Darer, Friends of Alberton West Forest (South Gippsland region) 
• Michelle Koala Thomas, Animalia Wildlife Shelter (Melbourne southeast suburbs)
• Gayle Osborne, Wombat Forestcare (Macedon-Trentham region) 
• Hayley Forster, WOTCH Wildlife of The Central Highlands 
• Amy Carlton, Wombat Action Group  (Macedon-Trentham region) 
• Janine Duffy, Koala Clancy Foundation  (wider Geelong region) 
  
  

The Koala Leaders Unite rally sent a strong message
- koala habitat needs urgent protection
Image © Danielle Judd

Koala Commandments for the next state Premier

Advocates for koalas have compiled urgent demands to save Victorian koalas.  They will be delivered to the next state Premier. 

The Koala Commandments have been signed by 16 groups including: 

Koala Clancy Foundation

Ballarat Wildlife Rehabilitation & Conservation

Friends of Alberton West Forest / Mel & the Menagerie

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)

Wombat Forestcare

Blessings of the Bush Koala Shelter

Australian Forests & Climate Alliance (AFCA)

Mornington Peninsula Koala Conservation

Fair Go For Wildlife Shelter

Reach Out Wildlife Australia

Victorian Forest Alliance

Animalia Wildlife Shelter

Wombat Action Group

Environment East Gippsland 

Southern Koala SKAT Project 

Koalas need habitat to survive and thrive -
too many have lost their habitats
because of bushfires, logging and development
Images ©  Koala Clancy Foundation

For like any species, koalas need habitat to survive and thrive, and nearly 50,000 koalas are about to die in Blue Gum plantations.  State owned logging operations are causing the death of the rare, genetically distinct Strzelecki koalas in the area of South Gippsland.  People are telling the Koala Clancy Foundation that koalas have disappeared.

Coming up to the election...

Despite the deaths of thousands of koalas in bush fires fuelled by climate change, the Dan Andrews government was pushing ahead with plans to drill for gas near the Twelve Apostles.  If this happens, unless koala lovers speak up, the Victorian koalas will soon be endangered.

Koalas need us to stretch out and give our support
Images ©  Koala Clancy Foundation

The state government hasn’t even updated its Koala Management Strategy since the last one was written in 2004.  The state government says that nearly 50,000 koalas are living in the Blue Gum plantations in south west Victoria – these plantations are all due to be logged.

Where will those koalas go?

What will they eat?

Doesn’t the state government even care?

And if it does say it cares, why is it destroying koala habitat, when it says there are about 50,000 koalas in the area it is going to log?

Please visit the websites above and see if there is anything you can do to get involved, wherever you are.  Wildlife need us and the more people who join in to help in whatever way they can, the better.

Wildlife need habitat to survive and thrive.

Well, there’s never been a more important time to stand up for nature and make a real noise about it.

Friends of the Earth emailed this morning.  Essentially, the UK is planning what they describe as a bonfire of the laws protecting our environment.

Even in national parks, the UK government’s investment zones could concrete the countryside.  Developers would have a field day. Rules which limit river protection could go.  So could those protecting us from toxic pesticides.  If the Retained EU Law Bill goes ahead, Friends of the Earth say that hundreds of environmental laws could be torn up.

Friends of the Earth have a petition urging us all to stand up for nature.

Prime Minister Liz Truss is going all out for deregulation on a scale never seen before. 

We all need to unite like never before and stand up for nature.  Over 70 organisations – including Friends of the Earth – have written to the government demanding a change of direction.

Please join with them by signing and sharing the petition today.  

I am quoting from the petition page:

"To: the UK government 

• Don’t axe the laws that protect our environment – commit to making them stronger instead. 
• Protect nature in “investment zones”. Don’t let them turn into concrete jungles bereft of wildlife. 
• Make planning rules work for people and nature - especially communities with limited access to nature."

As Friends of the Earth point out, a recent YouGov poll found that 81% of UK adults believe that wildlife and the environment are under threat.  We need to stand up for nature.  Just over 80,000 people voted Liz Truss in as PM.  That’s a tiny amount compared to the number of nature lovers in the UK.

Please sign the petition here

Find out more about #DefendNature here

Please take the 5 steps outlined by the Wildlife Trusts and contact your local MP and councillor.  We need to make some serious noise for nature.

Please join in the conversation about conservation and the People's Plan for Nature... find out more and join in (by 30th October 2022)

We need to protect nature.

The Hertfordshire and Middlesex Wildlife Trust 
have an appeal to save nature, including chalk streams.
Find out more here

350.org have a petition about a proposed new and enormous oil field called Rosebank. 

350.org say that if this Rosebank oil field goes ahead, the annual CO2 emissions would be more than those of the 28 lowest-income countries in the world put together.

350.org say that the Government should help tackle the cost-of-living crisis and our climate by kick-starting a fair transition to renewables and mass-insulating UK homes.

It says that the only way the Government will reject those Rosebank oil and gas field is if they see HUGE public opposition to new North Sea oil and gas.

Here’s the Conservative party manifesto for 2019, when they won the general election.  Check out their promises on climate change and fossil fuels.

The UK Government could be:

• Investing money into renewables for everyone
• Help fossil fuel workers transition to other jobs
• Take insulation and energy-saving measures to help us through the cost-of-living crisis.

(Personally, I think it could also remove VAT off all products which mean we use more energy from renewables from washing lines for the garden and clothes horses (use the sun and wind to dry clothes) to solar power and wind power.)

Add your name now: Demand that Liz Truss rejects Rosebank and ALL new North Sea oil and gas!