Cardiff council will start its 9-year programme to plant thousands of new trees in parks, on streets and in new woodlands, as well as replacing diseased and dying trees, next month. The Coed Caerdydd project, welcomed by local people surveyed in 2019, received more than £220,000 from The Woodland Trust to start it, but additional funding from Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh government will make £1 million pounds available over the next 3 years.
Currently, it is estimated that Cardiff has 2,658 hectares of canopy cover, and the Coed Caerdydd project aims to increase that area progressively by 839 hectares to provide canopy cover to 25% of the city. Project plans include setting up a tree nursery within the Forest Farm country park to reduce the need to transport the new trees over large distances, and the project supplements other biodiversity projects, including the installation of bee-friendly bus stops, local “pocket parks” and growing areas, to drive Cardiff’s carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2030.
Although the council must be highly commended for such an ambitious plan – the extra trees should help reduce atmospheric pollution and carbon dioxide as well as providing new habitats for insects and birds – many continue to criticise the council for continuing to remove healthy, mature trees from other parts of the city. Perhaps, Cardiff council needs to make more effort to encourage future developments to encompass increased numbers of mature trees within their design, rather than to replace them.
Overall though, we are delighted to see that Cardiff is making such efforts to improve biodiversity, as well as making more attractive green spaces available to its population, and hope that other cities and towns across the UK will follow suit.
JP Ecological Services 