The late Queen’s legacy grows
SOME 1,000 acres of woodland consisting of more than half a million trees will be established across the UK, thanks to the Woodland Trust’s Platinum Woods scheme. The charity, in partnership with The Queen’s Green Canopy, began a large-scale tree-planting initiative in 2022 to coincide with and celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of the late Queen. Following the death of Elizabeth II in September last year, the scheme was extended to allow people to plant trees in her memory. As a result, a total of 14 ‘life-giving Platinum Woods’ have been established—including at an honorary site in New Zealand—that will see some 500,000 trees sprout from a combination of planting and natural regeneration.
According to Toby Bancroft, central England regional director at the Woodland Trust, The Queen’s Green Canopy initiative has been ‘inspirational’, adding that ‘in the face of the climate emergency and Nature crisis, we have never needed trees more for all the benefits they deliver for people and wildlife’. He added: ‘It’s been so heartening to work with like-minded landowners to create more than 1,000 acres of new native woodland as a significant contribution to The Queen’s Green Canopy.’
A total of 14 “life-giving Platinum Woods” have been established
The 14 new woods span the entire country and will include sites at historic homes, such as Burghley in Lincolnshire; farms, including the Wimpole estate in Cambridgeshire and Tidgrove Warren in Hampshire; as well as an urban site at Sandhills Wood in East London. A wood has also been planted at Glen Kyllachy in
