The Woodland Trust Northern Ireland plants 250,000 trees at Woodburn Reservoir
Communications officer
The Woodland Trust has been working in partnership with Northern Ireland Water on a regreening programme since 2020. During that time, the UK's leading woodland conservation charity has planted around 476,000 native trees on Northern Ireland Water's land.
In their most recent project at Woodburn Reservoir, the Woodland Trust planted almost 250,000 trees across 139 hectares, making this the largest native woodland creation site in Northern Ireland for over 30 years.
Outreach adviser Stephen Duggan explained the Woodland Trust Northern Ireland's role in the regreening programme:
"Here at Woodburn Reservoir, we have just finished planting 250,000 native trees over 139 hectares. The Woodland Trust sourced all the native trees, planned all the works safely, applied for the grants and approvals from the Forest Service. The Woodland Trust also maintains and provides aftercare to ensure each planted site thrives and becomes a long term success."
One of the Woodland Trust's main objectives is to create new native woodland. This is achieved by planting trees on land within the charity’s care, and by planting at scale through outreach partnerships with local landowners.
Matt Huddlestone, senior outreach manager said: "Thanks to our partnership with Northern Ireland Water, we have access to large areas of land within their care, and this is a huge opportunity for us to increase tree cover here on a landscape scale."
With under 9% tree cover, Northern Ireland is the least wooded area in Europe and ranks as the 12th worst globally for biodiversity loss.
Matt concluded: "The Woodland Trust wants to see a world where woods and trees thrive for nature and people. This is extremely urgent in Northern Ireland as we live in the least wooded area in Europe. If you own land and want to plant trees please get in touch, everyone can play their part."
The Woodland Trust's planting schemes MOREwoods and MOREhedges are open for applications for new woodland over 0.5 hectares in size and new hedging projects of 100 metres or more.
Notes to editors
About the Woodland Trust
The Woodland Trust was established in 1972 and is now the UK's largest woodland conservation charity, with more than 500,000 members and supporters.
With a vision of a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature, today the Trust owns and cares for more than 1,000 woodland sites, covering around 33,000 hectares.
The Woodland Trust has three key aims:
- protecting the UK's rare, unique and irreplaceable ancient woodland
- restoring damaged ancient woodland, nurturing precious pieces of our natural heritage back to life
- establishing new native trees and woods to create healthy, resilient landscapes for people and wildlife.
Access to all Woodland Trust woods is free so everyone can experience the physical and mental benefits of trees.