Planting the seeds of change in Durham schools

Pupils from primary and secondary schools across County Durham put on their wellies and picked up their spades to help tackle climate change.
This planting season, more than 3,000 trees were planted by more than 2,600 children and young people, as part of Durham County Council’s Trees for Children project and its climate emergency programme.
The trees are all native local species such as oak, birch and willow.

As part of the programme, the children learned the value of trees to wildlife habitats and how to identify
the different species around them by what their seeds and leaves look like.

Coun Mark Wilkes, Durham County Council’s Cabinet member for neighbourhoods and climate change, said: “It has been a fantastic year for our Trees for Children project with a whopping 3,224 trees planted across the county.
“Since the project began, children from 45 schools have planted 5,400 trees and helped to create new woodland on almost 45 hectares of land.
“This has played a major role in our woodland creation programme which is a key part of our efforts to combat climate change.”

The majority of the planting has been done on public land and the council is working with the North East Community Forest to engage with private landowners to secure further planting sites.