Steyning for Trees: June Newsletter

It was great to meet so many of you at the Steyning Market on 1st May. Thanks for coming to have a chat - many of you are working on our Plant a Tree on the verge scheme, encouraging people in your road to join in by choosing, donating and watering for the first two years a tree on the WSCC verge by you. We planted 21 trees on verges last year - don’t they look great! We hope to plant more this year, the cost is going up next year, WSCC are holding it down this year especially for Steyning For Trees.

Many thanks to all those who entered the Photo competition this is the winning entry taken by Emma Amphlett in the adult section.

Val Bullen (another keen tree planter) watering her lovely early flowering Prunus Pandora

Emma’s prize was a free tree on a verge near her and a Voucher from Gris et Blanc, partly funded by them and SFT. Sam Williams (11) won the Junior section with a picture of one of the trees on the triangle between Ingram Road and Penlands Way. Sam received a book token for Steyning Bookshop.

I expect some of you have read about Suzanne Simard’s new book ‘Finding the Mother Tree’ this is about the tallest in the forest nurturing the smaller trees around it by the symbiotic relationships with fungi on the outside of their roots. She says trees are more altruistic than competitive. Chris Packham illustrated the woodwide web on Winter Watch. Published by Allen Lane. Buy it from the bookshop.

Destruction of the Rainforest Soars: in Brazil 58,000 hectares of habitat has been lost to deforestation which is a rise of 43% from the previous April.

16 billion trees a year are being cut down worldwide.

Trees For Tom:- 35,000 trees are to be planted in memory of Sir Tom Moore his daughter announced.

Ecosia search engine plant a tree for every internet search you make - thanks for that info. Shona.

We were invited to join the Woodland Trust webinar on their ground breaking report on the State of Woods and Trees 2020/21. It covers a huge amount of data including an inventory of our Ancient Woodlands.

Sadly only 7% of our woods are in good condition. We are fortunate to have the W.T’s Lost Woods project improving our woodland in this area.

They emphasised the importance of areas outside major woodland needing to be planted to increase connectivity highlighting the decline by 85% in hedges etc. since 1850.

Although overall tree coverage is increasing, unfortunately this is mostly because of large amounts of conifers being planted which are not so good for wildlife. There have been 29% decrease in birds since 1970, 41% in butterflies since 1990, 15% in plants since 2015.

They have a record of the top 10 trees with the largest girths.

Trees support people helping them, wildlife and livestock to adjust to Climate Change. Only 16.2% of people have access to trees and countryside within 500m - aren’t we lucky with our wonderful National Park on our doorstep.
KEY FINDINGS of the report are that not enough is being done.

We need more woodland only: a quarter of what we need for net zero targets are being planted.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/state-of-uk-woods-and-trees/