{"id":1245,"date":"2021-06-09T21:11:25","date_gmt":"2021-06-09T20:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2021-06-09T21:11:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-09T20:11:27","slug":"reimagining-the-levels-winter-2020-21-tree-planting-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/?p=1245","title":{"rendered":"Reimagining the Levels (Winter 2020\/21) Tree Planting News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Summary of the \u201cTrees for Water\u201d Scheme in partnership with Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA), the Environment Agency (EA), the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South West (FWAGSW) and the Woodland Trust<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reimagining the Levels has had\nan incredible tree planting season. \nAltogether around 19000 trees left our newly established Nursery to be\nplanted in Somerset.  That\u2019s 19000 more trees to enhance\nthe health and biodiversity of our landscape!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trees for Water scheme has\nbeen incredibly popular and understandably so.  It does feel as if people everywhere are finally waking up\nto the necessity for more planting and are looking for ways to do so.  Additionally, there have been a surge\nof people interested in volunteering with us and, despite Covid restrictions,\nwe have enabled groups to participate in planting trees and shrubs safely on a\nnumber of days on six different sites. \nThese have been so much fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Woodland Trust provided us\nwith the bulk of the trees and shrubs for free – 37 different species of mostly native woodland. \nThese were delivered to our Nursery in stages, usually 3000 to 4000 a\ntime of good, strong healthy plants, where they were \u2018heeled\u2019 in immediately to stop their roots from\ndrying.  This way they were kept in\ngood condition until required for planting.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trees for Water Scheme was\nadvertised mainly in South Somerset and Mendip Districts.  It was hard to know how to go about getting\nthe word out that there were free trees and grants available to small\nlandowners and we opted to publicise with the District Councils and two local\nmagazines, the Leveller and the Mendip Times.  Somehow people seemed to hear and the requests came tumbling\nin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kate and Phil managed these\nrequests and with members of the RtL team visited each applicant and site to\nassess its merit for SRA or EA funding and\nwhether the land would be suitable for planting trees.  RtL are mindful of the need to protect\nalready diversity-rich landscapes from unnecessary disturbance and each site\nwas carefully screened to understand its ecology.  If the applicant met the\ncriteria for Water Management, a process led by water pathway mapping, a\nPlanting Plan was provided that advised on the most suitable trees for that\nlandscape.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We assisted 12 EA Riparian (riverside) Planting schemes to go ahead and\n24 SRA schemes.  These varied in\nsize: the largest had 1120 trees and shrubs, the smallest 50.  Kate estimated that almost 40 acres of\nWoodland and 1 mile of hedging had been planted with trees from the\nNursery!  We planted trees and\nhedgerow in two local schools with Year 5 children and helped one Community\nPlanting on a Recreation Ground. \nAdditionally, 40 other individuals and groups have taken trees from the\nRtL nursery.  Farmers, landowners,\nTransition Langport, Compton Dundon Village, Wedmore Wood and others.  The message that RtL is supporting\nlocal tree planting has really got out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We already have around 12\nschemes wanting to plant next season and we are hoping to expand into Sedgemoor\nand Taunton and West Somerset Districts. \nWe are also keen to grow the number of Schools and Community Plantings,\ninvolving and empowering people to positively connect with their local\nlandscapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know of any suitable\nsites or landowners thinking about plantings, do urge them to get in\ntouch.  We hope to match, if not\nincrease the numbers of plantings we do next season.  And if you want to be put on our volunteer list for helping\nout, please let us know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We would like to thank both\nthe Environment Agency and the Somerset Rivers Authority for their foresight in\nrecognizing the role trees have in helping climate adaptation, FWAGSW for their\ninvaluable knowledge of Somerset\u2019s varied landscape, and the Woodland Trust for\ntheir generosity in supplying the trees and shrubs that made it possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reimagining the Levels June 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Summary of the \u201cTrees for Water\u201d Scheme in partnership with Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA), the Environment Agency (EA), the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South West (FWAGSW) and the Woodland Trust Reimagining the Levels has had an incredible tree planting season.  Altogether around 19000 trees left our newly established Nursery to be planted in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annoucements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1255,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reimaginingthelevels.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}