From the National Trust for Jersey:
To help celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, the Lieutenant-Governor, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton and his wife, Lady Dalton, will be joining sponsors and supporters to plant seven ceremonial trees to kick-start a project that aims to add 700 trees and 700 shrubs, to a new site on Bouley Bay Hill as part of the nationwide initiative, the Queen’s Green Canopy project.
The aim of the Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is to encourage groups, communities and organisations across the country, to enhance the environment by planting trees throughout 2022, as well as dedicating a network of 70 ancient woodlands across the United Kingdom and identify 70 ancient trees to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70 years of service.
Joining Sir Stephen and Lady Dalton are Chris Ambler, CEO of Jersey Electricity, Philip Le Sueur, Constable of Trinity, and Anna and Rupert Bradstock, who donated the site for the new woodland in 2021, who will also be planting trees to mark the occasion.
The Bouley Bay Queen’s Green Canopy, is supported by Jersey Electricity as part of the Parish Earth Partnership, which aims to encourage the community to plant trees and shrubs to contribute towards carbon neutrality and to enhance biodiversity. Jersey Electricity has committed to invest up to £60,000 towards the planting of trees in each parish (£5,000 per parish).
Chris Ambler, the CEO of Jersey Electricity, commented: ‘This tree planting project will not only enhance the beauty and improve the environment of the Bouley Bay area, it will also boost the Island’s biodiversity and help to sequester carbon as we continue the urgent need to reduce our carbon levels.’
The National Trust for Jersey will co-ordinate the planting efforts on the steep côtils. It is a further partnership with JE after a joint effort by both organisations, over the past three years that saw 4,500 trees planted in Mourier Valley to extend the existing woodland cover in the valley.
Jon Parkes, lands manager for the National Trust for Jersey, added: ‘We are very fortunate in Jersey to have an amazing diversity of rich habitats, from coastal heathland, to dune land and wetlands, but managed woodlands are something that are under represented here and across the UK, compared to other European countries.
‘Thanks to the generosity of Rupert and Anna, who donated us this site, and the sponsorship from Jersey Electricity, we shall be able to increase the level of existing woodland cover in Bouley Bay, providing homes, food and opportunities to venture into new territories, for wildlife. Our hope for this project is that a beautiful rich woodland will be standing here in another 70 years’ time. What better way to mark such a special occasion, as the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, than by planting trees that will leave such a lasting legacy. As the American writer Michael Pollan quoted “Tree planting is always a utopian enterprise, it seems to me, a wager on a future the planter doesn’t necessarily expect to witness.” ‘
