The Woodland Trust - Grantham Journal 4 May 2007

02 May 2007

Grantham Journal article

Mostly I visit constituency-based organisations in my constituency and see my constituents there on Fridays or over the weekend. But sometimes – and I am always delighted – they come down to Westminster.

On Tuesday, the Grantham-based Woodland Trust gave a reception in the House of Commons for Parliamentarians. I was pleased and proud that colleagues at Westminster had a chance to hear from the Trust directly of the good work they do.

The Woodland Trust is a non-profit making organisation with 160,000 members and a budget of £21 million a year, most of which is spent on planting trees, managing woodlands, encouraging public access to wooded areas and providing information and education campaigns in support of the environment. Their operations are all over the country. Locally they have planted and manage 150 acres of woodland between Londonthorpe and Belton.

Among the Woodland Trust’s recent successes was the national Christmas Card recycling scheme.

It proved to be a triple whammy for the environment. 94 million cards were recycled – that’s a lot of trees in the world that didn’t need to be cut down to provide paper for new cards. Secondly, it avoided all those cards going into landfill – or generating carbon dioxide being burnt. Thirdly, the scheme in one year made enough profit to pay for a further 22,000 trees to be planted (that’s roughly 44 acres of new woodland and therefore carbon absorption capacity for the future). If they can do that every year, it will make a major difference.

130 people work in the Trust’s headquarters on the Dysart Road. Those I met on Tuesday, and those I have met before in Grantham, are bright and motivated. They can all hold their heads high doing a profoundly useful job.

We live in an overcrowded country. Many people see too little of nature, and spend too much time indoors or breathing the polluted air of inner-city streets.

Merely stating these facts doesn’t get anyone very far. Someone needs to do something about it.

The Woodland Trust are doing just that. Well done – and keep up the good work!