York Community Woodland was honoured at the Yorkshire Show last week by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, the Royal Forestry Society and the Forestry Commission who agreed it was the deserving recipient of the John Bobby Award for forestry.
Winning the award will come as great encouragement to the organisers but readers should be sure that this is only the beginning for the project, their real goals are long term — to offset the impact of emissions and make York a carbon neutral city all whilst producing a green recreational space for residents to visit.
Cllr Jenny Kent, City of York Council’s joint executive member for Environment and Climate Emergency, said:
“I’m thrilled to hear that York Community Woodland has won such a prestigious award in the face of stiff competition from our region’s many wonderful community forestry projects. It’s great to see the skill and effort of hundreds of local volunteers rewarded – this project represents what York’s communities can achieve when we work together towards a shared goal.
“As well as creating a beautiful green space for future generations to enjoy, the woodland is a vital part of our plan to become a carbon net-zero city by 2030, an ambitious goal which requires us to change land use to offset emissions across the city”
When the forest was set up in 2019 through an alliance between the council and Forestry England, they set the target of planting 50,000 trees by 2023. In February the woodland smashed this out the water, announcing the planting of the site’s 85,000th tree.
It now looks to be well ahead of schedule on its long term target of growing 210,000 trees in the next few years, one for each resident of York; in doing so they expect to grow the entire city’s canopy coverage by three per cent.
This award, won a full year before the wood actually opens to the public, proves the extent to which local people are prepared to go to fight back in the war against climate change.
As none of the planting would have been possible without the efforts of it’s army of 400 hundred volunteers.
Head over to www.forestryengland.uk/article/york-community-woodland for all the details on how you can help out.
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