On Saturday 5 March 2011 over 75 cadets planted 900 native trees at Ffos Las Racecourse near Camarthenshire.
Representing the Dyfed and Glamorgan Army Cadet Forces, the young cadets turned out at the course to continue their aim of planting 150,000 native trees throughout the UK in commemoration of the Cadet Forces’ 150th anniversary.
With the help of The Woodland Trust (Coed Cadw) the cadets have already planted approximately 135,000 trees at approximately fifty events throughout the UK since November 2009 as part of the commemorative Cadet150 project. Around 20,000 of these trees have been planted in the cadets’ local communities as part of the Woodland Trust Tree Pack Scheme, while thousands more have been planted on at least nine major Woodland Trust sites and at four private estates as part of the Trust’s MOREwoods Scheme.
The trees planted at Ffos Las on Saturday were also provided by the MOREwoods scheme - a woodland creation programme that offers direct assistance through advice, practical help and sometimes funding to landowners wanting to create small areas of native woodland. The Trust’s aim is to double the amount of native woodland in the country. With only 12 per cent woodland cover, the UK is one of the least wooded country in Europe.
“The Trust has ambitious aims to increase native tree cover,” said Clare Ollerenshaw, project manager. “Interest is growing in managing trees for a wide variety of purposes and we really want to help people across the county plant trees. MOREwoods concentrates on smaller scale tree planting but we are keen to talk to landowners about larger scale opportunities too.”
At Ffos Las, the cadets planted an impressive array of native species including alder, birch, hazel, hawthorn, dogwood, and goat willow. It is estimated that within twelve years the new trees will grow to approximately 15 feet and therefore will act as attractive and varied shelterbelts at the racecourse site as well as line the public footpath that runs along the Afon Morlais Diversion Channel to create an attractive walk that can be enjoyed by the local communities of Carway and Trimsaran as well as visitors to the area.
“Ffos Las has received a huge amount of support to enhance the regeneration of the site of the old open-cast coal mine,” says Tim Long, Clerk of the course. “The planting event on Saturday has helped to integrate Ffos Las into the wider community through developing aesthetically-enjoyable and ecologically-appropriate woodland.”
Kicking off the cadets’ final month of tree-planting events across the UK, and with the impressive target very much in sight, the event at Ffos Las reflects the importance of woodland creation for leaving that which Colonel Frank Hewitt – the chief link between the Woodland Trust and the Cadet Forces - has described as “a longlasting effect of an important event.”
As well as marking the Cadet Forces’ 150th year, the new trees at Ffos Las will represent the ongoing success of the collaboration between the Woodland Trust and the Cadet Forces, which in 2010 reached its tenth year. And the trees will also mark the beginning of the new partnership between the Woodland Trust and Ffos Las, as both parties convey optimism about future collaboration in woodland creation.
To find out more about the MOREwoods project, see www.MoretreesMoregood.org.uk/planting or email us at morewoods@woodlandtrust.org.uk or call on 0845 293 5689.