City of Trees are dreaming of a green Christmas over the festive period and beyond after a mass planting event saw over 1,000 sown in one day & 5,000 saplings for Salford this winter.
The Manchester-based group City of Trees were joined by nearly 200 volunteers last Saturday including Radio 1 DJ, actor and presenter Cel Spellman and Youth Strike Manchester organiser Emma Greenwood.
The event was part of a national campaign aimed to encourage one million people to join the fight against climate change by pledging to support seeding around the city of Manchester.
City of Trees is the Greater Manchester group who wants to make a difference in the local community and try to help reverse the impact of carbon emissions.
In August 2019 the NHS in Greater Manchester declared a climate emergency, and had to commit to take action to slash carbon emissions in order to avert predicted illness and disease.
They are calling on the city’s residents to help them plant half a million trees by the end of tree planting season – March 2020.
On the day nearly 200 volunteers helped plant over 1,000 new trees in Whitefield, Bury.
One of the volunteers who showed their support was local Radio 1 DJ and more recently World on Fire actor Cel Spellman, who joined in the planting as a passionate advocate for the environment.
He said: “Trees are going to be so integral in this fight against climate change. We are on a very precarious timeline, we only have so long before what we have done to this earth is too devastating and we’ve left it too late.”
City of Trees was also joined by Emma Greenwood, aged 15, a member of the organisation Youth Strike for the Climate and Youth MP for Bury.
She said: “I hope the City of Trees initiative will push people to realise the importance of trees for our planet and the true power they have to save our world.”
The charity is calling on people from all around to show their support, dig deep by donating whilst also connecting with the local environment.
The Committee on Climate Change report in May this year outlines the increase in woodland expansion needed to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Jessica Thompson, Director of City of Trees, said: “City of Trees has an ambition to plant a tree for every person living here and this campaign feeds into our much bigger plan to plant at least three million trees in the next 30 years.”
On top of this, Green Salford is to become ever greener with plans to plant 5,000 more shrubs over the festive period.
They will be dug into place this winter by Salford City Council, City of Trees, the University of Salford, RHS Garden Bridgewater, local schools and friends of parks groups.
Councillor Derek Antrobus, lead member for planning and sustainable development, said it was part of plans to maximise tree cover in Salford which is already 60% green space.
“It has always been the council’s policy to plant two trees in place of every single one which has to be removed because it is dead, dying, diseased or dangerous or is removed as part of development. These extra 5,000 trees will enhance our parks, local nature reserves, roadside verges.”
Thank-you to all our amazing volunteers on Saturday who helped to plant over 1,000 trees!
Every £10 helps plant a tree – please donate today – https://t.co/kosQTnmEWb pic.twitter.com/dcPJ0Fn87p
— City of Trees (@CityofTreesMcr) December 2, 2019
