Activities planned for 2022; Dark Skies Festival 2022; Queen’s Green Canopy; Richmondshire Climate Action Partnership; Snaizeholme; Together for Trees Project; Work of the group over the last year
Here are a few quick updates on what we’re up to…if you’re on Facebook, please join our group and get involved in the conversations.
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Happy New Year!
Activities planned for 2022:
- A number of tree planting sessions between January and March as part of the Together for Trees project. Even if you can only spare a couple of hours, please come and join us
- Organising periodic litter picks around the two dales
- Replanting the Reeth Surgery community beds for the new season and looking at extending the Incredible Edible concept to other locations
- Swifts and swallows project continuation
- Tree guard removal from local woodlands where the guards are no longer needed.
Dark skies festival 2022
This is being jointly run 18 February to 6 March by the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Parks which are now International Dark Sky Reserves. A range of events are being planned- visit the Dark Skies Festival website for details of events being held at the Keld Resource Centre and Bike Centre at Grinton, as well as Hawes and further afield.
Government funding for environmental schemes
The government published information on 6 January on two environmental schemes which, along with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, are designed to “reward farmers and landowners for actions which benefit the environment, supporting sustainable food production alongside vital nature recovery and work towards net zero.”
The Local Nature Recovery scheme will pay farmers for small scale, locally-targeted actions such as creating wildlife habitat, planting trees or restoring peat and wetland areas. Further information can be found on the gov.uk website via the link above.
The Landscape Recovery scheme will support more radical changes to land-use change and habitat restoration such as establishing new nature reserves, restoring floodplains, or creating woodland and wetlands. Pilot projects will create 10,000 hectares of restored wildlife habitat sequestering carbon and restoring streams. More information available by clicking on the link above.
Queen’s Green Canopy: plant a tree for the Jubilee
Individuals and groups are being encouraged to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee by planting a tree before March or after October 2022. Schools and community groups will be able to get free trees. The Queen’s Green Canopy will dedicate a network of 70 ancient woodlands and identify 70 ancient trees. English Heritage are planting 70 trees in their sites with one tree planted by MP Rishi Sunak at Richmond Castle. Take a photo when you plant a tree and you will be able to add your tree to an online map from October and create a virtual commemorative plaque.
Richmondshire residents fight back against climate change
An article in Richmondshire Today covers the work of the Richmond Climate Action Partnership (RCAP). Mike Sparrow, the Deputy Chair, is interviewed about the plans of the Group. RCAP held a competition for a poem on climate change and the winning poem by Amelia, a student at St Francis Zavier School, is published at the end of the article.
Snaizeholme
The Woodland Trust has purchased 550 acres around the Snaizeholme red squirrel sanctuary. Plans for the site include planting 250,000 trees, repairs to dry stone walls and leaky dams to slow the flow of the stream within the site. Once completed, it will be one of the largest new woodlands in the Yorkshire Dales and a major site for the Northern Forest – a government funded 25 year plan to plant 50 million trees across Northern England.
Together for Trees project
The group has been busy planting hedgerows and trees as part of the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust/Together for Trees initiative. There are 11 sites in Arkengarthdale and Swaledale with approximately 2,500 trees being planted. We are currently planning for planting sessions into February/March so if you are interested in helping for a few hours, please click here to check out the online schedule or keep an eye on our Facebook page or email for information.
Work of the group over the last year
Over the last year the group has:
- Been the Swaledale coordinators for the ‘Together for Trees’ local community-based tree-planting project, in partnership with the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust
- Built connections with organisations such as the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust, Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust, Tees-Swale: Naturally Connected
- Debated and informed via our Facebook group, website and contributions in the Reeth Gazette
- Engaged with the planning process, focussing on issues of importance to the civic and environmental sustainability agenda
- Established more beds in the new community garden at the Reeth Surgery and produced fresh produce for anyone to consume
- Helped set up a wholefood buying group
- Learnt to identify trees and wild flowers in sessions organised with the Tees Swale Project
- Organised litter picks
- Partnered with other local environmental groups to form the ‘Richmondshire Coalition of Climate Change Interested Parties’ and used this combined influence to hold Richmondshire DC to their climate change commitments
- Removed tree guards in multiple sites such as the Heggs Castle Cluster and Rowleth Woods
AGM and next meeting
We will hold our AGM on 3rd February at the Two Dales Bakery in Reeth at 7pm. Come and find out more about who we are and what we do. If you would like to join us, please get in touch