Forest of 20,000 spruces will be planted in Scotland thanks to the Mail’s Be A Tree Angel campaign

More than 20,000 trees will be donated by the Daily Mail to plant a forest as part of this paper’s Be A Tree Angel campaign.

The Norway spruce saplings will be planted at a location in Scotland.

The Mail’s Be A Tree Angel campaign, organised with the Tree Council, is urging readers to plant trees or to pledge money to help plant them.

Britain needs to more than double the number of trees it plants each year if it is to meet commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

In the past few weeks the number of trees planted or pledged to be planted thanks to the campaign has hit more than 70,000.

This includes 20,000 pledged by Network Rail over the next year, as well as thousands of birch, holly, oak, willow and spruce given away by this paper.

Part of the campaign – supported by businesses – has received £450,000 in donations, which will help plant orchards at 4,500 schools around the UK. This is more than four times the original target.

Part of the campaign – supported by businesses – has received £450,000 in donations, which will help plant orchards at 4,500 schools around the UK. This is more than four times the original target. An English Oak tree is pictured above [File photo]

Also backing the campaign is Yorkshire Water, which is pledging to plant 250,000 trees by spring next year. 

The campaign, which has been backed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has already received four donations of £100,000 from business leaders: Restaurateur Richard Caring; tycoon Lord Sugar; an anonymous businessman; and, as announced yesterday, Sir Jonathan Ive, the design brain behind the look of many classic Apple products.

Britain is dependent on importing foreign timber, but the country’s forestry sector has to grow if the UK is to meet tree-planting targets. 

Just over 13 per cent of the UK is covered in forest, compared with around 37 per cent in Europe on average.

The Committee on Climate Change has recommended that the UK boosts tree cover to 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres) of woodland a year, compared to the 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) planted last year.

Paul Munro, a spokesman for Forestry Commission Scotland, said a location would be found in either central or southern Scotland for the 20,000 Norway spruce trees donated by the Mail.

He said that the trees would grow for around 40 years, locking up the carbon they absorb in that time before they die and make way for new trees.

Mr Munro added: ‘Part of the solution to tackling the climate emergency is to grow new trees, so you have a commercial forestry cycle. You need to plant trees, and then harvest them and grow new trees.’

Yesterday Loyd Grossman, chairman of the Royal Parks, and TV environmentalist Chris Packham both backed the Mail’s campaign, organised with the Tree Council.

Mr Grossman said: ‘It is easy to take trees for granted but they are one of our nation’s most valuable natural assets and we must do everything we can to preserve them. This is why the Daily Mail’s Christmas appeal is so important.

‘We must protect what we have and plant for the future, so that our wonderful trees can be enjoyed by many future generations. With the UK’s population projected to increase by 3million by 2028, parks and trees will become an even more vital component of urban life. Now, more than ever, we must respect, protect and invest in our trees.’

Mr Packham said: ‘I think the existential crisis of climate change is sometimes overwhelming for people and the problem with ringing the clarion bell and saying this is a very serious situation is good, it wakes people up, but then you’ve got to give them something to do.

‘There is a right tree for you, if you’re in a garden there are certain species that you can look at – rowan, wild cherry, those sorts of things. If you have more space then you can plant trees which will spread and their roots will spread.’

The Norway spruce saplings will be planted at a location in Scotland. The Mail’s Be A Tree Angel campaign, organised with the Tree Council, is urging readers to plant trees or to pledge money to help plant them [File photo]