The next project will be the largest that we have conducted and will be funded by community fundraising and a matching donation from the Aviva Community Fund and British Airways Better World Community Fund.
About 80% of the park is woodland, most of which were planted after the Gedling Colliery closed in 1991. The plantations are lacking in the diversity of species and age. It is possible that when the trees reach the end of their lives many of these trees will die around the same time. The lack of diversity of species also limits the quality of the woodlands as a habitat and throughout the country loss of habitats has resulted in significant decline of wildlife. The Natural History Museum reports that overall, 41% of species have declined of these, 26% of mammals are at risk of extinction and 22% of bird species have declined and some animals have fared very badly. Hedgehogs and Turtle Doves have declined by 95% and 98% respectively. Our plan is to clear space in the woods and plant a variety of British broadleaf trees over the next decade or so starting in the Autumn of 2023 so that there will be a variety of tree species and maturity in the future. Our Crowdfunding has already started, and we would like to ask if you could make a small donation to this exciting new project for the Gedling Country Park. We have been informed by Crowdfunding that an early rush of donations is highly effective in encouraging widespread support for a project. The link to the donation page is: https://crowdfunder.co.uk/p/diversification-of-woodland-1 Trustees cannot donate because it is a condition of the match funding that this is a community initiative. I hope you can help, just £5 is enough to buy a tree and we aim to plant a thousand in the first phase of this initiative. Thank you Terry Lock Chair |
Thanks so much for your donations.Today 28th June 2023 we are making a key step forward.
A list of the 1025 trees and details of the shrubs and flowers that will be planted during the next Autumn and Winter has been drawn up by the FGCP environmentalist Brian Osborne working with the Park Rangers Rob and Michael. The Rangers input will be key to the success of this initiative and in September when the bird nesting season is over they will start work clearing space for the new trees by felling dead trees and thinning out overcrowding. Dead trees are invaluable to the woodlands as they become home to invertebrates and as they rot nutrients are returned to the soil. The invertebrates provide food for the rest of the wildlife in the woods and in fact the woodpeckers favourite tree is a dead one. So work will now start on procuring the trees and care will be taken to ensure that they have a good provenance to ensure we get healthy native trees. Work will then start on the planting and volunteer days will be arranged both during the week and on Sunday mornings. Why not join us and plant a tree? Using an App like OS Location you can establish the location of your tree’s and re-find it, to watch it grow over the years. Updates will be posted from time time and the next one will include some photographs of the woods as they are now so we can can have some “before and after” images. We Made ItDated Tuesday 1st August 2023
On behalf of myself, my fellow trustees and the trees of Gedling Country Park I want to express our great thanks to all those people who have supported us by donating to our recent fundraising arranged by Crowdfunder. The support of Aviva, British Airways and the Wild Isles Community Funds(which is supported by RSPB and the World Wildlife Fund), by match funding your donations means that we have raised a final total of £13,715.23 This will allow us, with the support of Gedling Borough Council, to buy a significant number of British native trees and ground cover plants which will be planted over the next 12-24 months to diversify the woodlands and so improve the habitats of the Wildlife. We are only able to work in the woods outside the nesting season so this means we will be working from September to March in 2023 and 2024. The crowdfunding scheme has now been formally closed but if there are any individuals or organisations would like to help out we can still take donations directly via our own webpage. https://www.gedlingcountrypark.org.uk/donate-or-join.html#Donate We will needs lots of willing volunteers to help out as we set about clearing spaces and planting new trees, bushes and ground cover plants. These sessions will be fully advertised on our Facebook Page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/FriendsofGCP If organisations or groups would like to help us by volunteering then please contact us via this email: [email protected] or our contact page https://www.gedlingcountrypark.org.uk/contact-us.html We always ensure that group volunteering days are a mixture of work and learning how their contributions help the wildlife. Thank you Terry Lock |