Wyre Council has committed to planting 25,000 trees over the next five years as part of its pledge to tackle climate change.
The council will work with the Woodland Trust to create 10 hectares of new native woodland and hedgerows across Wyre by 2025.
This outlines the first steps of Wyre’s climate focused tree planting, which will play a vital role in mitigating climate change and protecting wildlife.
The action is one of the first to come out of the newly constituted Climate Change Policy Group, chaired by Councillor Sir Robert Atkins. The group was formed following a unanimous decision at a full council meeting to implement a detailed consideration of the implications of climate change.
Councillor Sir Robert Atkins, a former minister for the Environment and Countryside, said: “This initiative is part of the all-important fight against climate change, which is a critical issue for all of us. This is such a huge area that we must be specific in setting achievable objectives.
“Our aim is to reduce our carbon footprint and planting more trees is a vital part of this. Planting trees not only makes our surroundings more pleasant, there are also huge benefits for wildlife and the environment. As well as filtering out air pollution, trees provide a biodiversity habitat for birds, bats and other wildlife and they also help to mitigate against flooding. Ultimately these new trees will ensure that Wyre continues to be a happy and healthy place to be.”
In 2020 the Climate Change Policy Group will be inviting interested groups, schools and communities, in particular young people, to get in touch with their ideas and initiatives on how we can work together to tackle climate change.
The council will also be working with local schools, communities and land owners to encourage further tree planting.
The Woodland Trust is giving away hundreds of thousands of trees to schools and communities, applications for which open in January 2020. Plus the Trust’s MOREwood and MOREhedges schemes have been launched to give landowners the opportunity to apply for grants and funding to plant trees on a large scale.
For more information about the Woodland Trust and how they can help you to plant more trees go to www.woodlandtrust.org.uk