It’s National Tree Week and here at Sacred Earth in Sussex we’re thinking about all the wonderful things they do for us and how important it is for us to be planting trees for the future.
My love affair with trees started as a child. It was always a tree I escaped to when I wanted to hide from my parents, have some time to think or play a game with my friends. As I grew older trees became special places under which to contemplate the meaning of life and now they are a vital part of my nature connection work. I see the incredible mental health benefits they bring to our mentoring and educational groups.
In today’s fast-paced, consumer-driven world, I wonder how many of us seek out the solace of trees. How is it that they always seem to calm us down and make us feel better?
The list of what trees do for us is pretty long. They combat climate change by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen, protect land from flooding, create habitats for a massive variety of wildlife, support the health of the soil and supply us with wood.
Yet they have never been so under threat. Even as I write this, plans are in place to cut down trees in their thousands, to make way for new houses, transport and industrial infrastructure.
Planting trees at Sacred Earth
Meeting our immediate human need without thinking about the consequences can have a devastating impact on the environment, for example, the endless pressure to build new houses or the mantra that economic growth must be pursued at all costs. We need to work harder to find more sustainable solutions to our problems.
For example, in their attempts to alleviate poverty in West Africa, charities offered grants enabling buy zoloft online families to use land for growing crops. This involved cutting down a lot of the Atlantic rainforest, which attracts rainfall by creating atmospheric flows of water vapour. It didn’t take long before drought hit, and without the rainforest there to help absorb moisture and service the soil, the land soon became useless. Luckily these charities reviewed their policies and came up with a more sustainable solution. Part of this was to give the families local varieties of trees to plant on their land. Now those people’s lives have improved – along with the health of the land.
We can learn from this that putting immediate human gain above environmental issues will not benefit our planet – or us – in the long run.
At Sacred Earth we are working on several projects that support trees:
- New field research on how biochar can prevent and support against the spread of Ash Dieback – a virus that could kill all our ash trees in the UK. Recent studies have shown that putting biochar around the tree base can prevent the disease taking hold.
- Planting trees for future generations across our 40-acre site in Sussex.
- Developing a conservation plan, including the creation of a natural corridor for wildlife protection.
If you’d like to support us you can make a donation through Just Giving, become a member of our Community Benefit Society or buy your own oak-planting pack for just £25 ((go to sacredearthland.co.uk for more info).
You can help in other ways, too. Support other local schemes, like Vert Community Woodland, complain to politicians when you see that local development projects are destroying woodland, or donate to national charities like The Woodland Trust.
Trees do so much for us. Now they desperately need us to stand up for them.
Thanks for your support. Phil.
