"action is the life of all, and if thou dost not act, thou dost nothing"

- Gerard Winstanley

(Photo Courtesy of Hebden Bridge Times)

Welcome...

Treesponsibility in Calderdale is a not-for-profit community group, based on mutual accountability and consensus.  At the moment we have thirteen "core" members with a wider circle of people who subscribe to our newsletter and turn up to tree plantings. So far we've managed to plant about 20,000 trees and hedge plants, and we've also written a book!.  Our aims are to:-

a) encourage, empower and enable peope to take responsibility for their own carbon dioxide emissions through tree-planting, as one urgent response to climate change.

b) bring back our lost woodlands and hedgerows and increase biodiversity.

c) spread the idea and practice of land-connectedness, co-operation and community as a possible future, and the most sensible way out of the present environmental crisis. We can each choose not to contribute to global warming.  Instead, we can contribute to climate change of a rather different kind - a shift towards connectedness, community and love of the land.

We also intend to have fun, while we're doing all this!

Introduction...

Recycling our pollution into ecological restoration is not an impossible dream - for the average person this would involve a couple of days' pleasurable outdoor work each year, planting in the region of  50 trees.  Once we have put in this initial effort, nature will finish the job for us - the tree seedlings will draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, releasing the oxygen atoms and locking the carbon atoms up as wood.   (Trees come in all shapes and sizes, but as a very rough guideline, 5 tree seedlings will soak up one tonne of carbon dioxide  over a period of fifty years)

Since the second world war, the mechanisation of agriculture and pressure for development land and road-building has led to a loss of ancient woodlands, copses and hedgerows.  Our vision is to restore that lost tree cover.  By planting broadleaf trees, such as oak, ash, birch, hawthorn and rowan, we can create wildlife havens in our cities, and  bring back the beauty and the birdsong to our silent fields.  The trees we plant will provide shelter belts for a more sensible system of farming using organic and permaculture techniques.  Community orchards and coppices will supply food and woodland products.   A patchwork of woods and wildlife corridors will provide an ecologically rich landscape - our contribution to the future. (click here for our Ecological Watchpoints)

This site is a "guided tour" of our treesponsibility project here in Calderdale,  passing on tips and techniques we've picked up along the way.

The last two years have been an exhilarating mix of fun, panic and adventure, with a hefty dollop of hard work.

Often we have felt that we've bitten off more than we could chew - but hey! - with the help of schools and our local community we have already managed to plant twelve thousand  trees and hedgeplants, with another busy schedule drawn up for the year 2000.  That's a good feeling.

If we can do it, other people can too - we are not experts.  This site is based on our experiences over the past couple of years, and we hope it will be helpful, but please bear in mind that it's quite possible to take the same basic idea of treesponsibility and do things in a different way, or on a different scale.  Use what is useful for you, and skip over the rest.

The idea of treesponsibility is for everyone to share.  Have fun with it!

Contact Information

Telephone

+44 (0) 1422 843222

 

Postal address

P O Box 38, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshiire, United Kingdom, HX7 8YR

Electronic mail

General Information/Subscriptions: ineffable2@beeb.net
Book Sales/Donations: ineffable2@beeb.net
Webmaster: ineffable@beeb.net