THE DUKE OF SUSSEX TO JOIN SCHOOLCHILDREN AT A QUEEN’S COMMONWEALTH CANOPY AND WOODLAND TRUST TREE PLANTING
St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School, Acton
Wednesday 20th March, 2019
The Duke of Sussex will join schoolchildren as they take part in a tree planting project in support of The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC) initiative, together with the Woodland Trust.
Year 5 pupils from St Vincent’s Catholic Primary School in Acton will plant saplings in the school’s outdoor nature area, which will eventually become their own Forest School. His Royal Highness will meet the school’s Eco Ambassadors, and then join the children as they plant the saplings before planting his own tree, marking the achievements of the QCC and the Woodland Trust in providing 74,000 trees across the UK.
The QCC and the Woodland Trust, with funding from Sainsbury’s, last year launched two free plant-a-tree campaigns to highlight the importance of trees and woods and the impact they have on the environment. Members of the public applied for packs containing native broadleaf trees. The Woodland Trust continues to offer free trees for schools and communities, and is providing St Vincent’s with 60 broadleaf trees, to encourage and inspire children to learn about the importance of trees to their environment through positive outdoor experiences.
Launched in 2015, the QCC is a conservation initiative that unites the Commonwealth family of nations in creating a global network of indigenous forests to benefit communities and wildlife, now, and into the future. To date, more than 8.4 million hectares of forests in 43 countries have been dedicated to the QCC, honouring Her Majesty’s lifetime of service to the Commonwealth.
The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the UK. It has over 500,000 supporters and more than 1,000 sites in its care; covering 22,500 hectares including Wentwood in Wales which is a designated QCC forest. The Trust wants to see a UK rich in native woods and trees for people and wildlife.
The Duke of Sussex has previously visited QCC forest dedications during his official visits across the Commonwealth including projects in Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, New Zealand, Australia, Tonga and Fiji. In 2017 The Duke visited the Epping Forest QCC dedication.
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