Our tiny team here at Co-forest is really excited to be able to tell you that we’ve found and secured our first forest site for Co-forest: Acorn.

This has been a while coming – since lockdowns and the pandemic made carrying out site visits and ecological surveys fairly challenging – but we’re thrilled to now be at a point where we can order trees for the next planting season. 

The new site is near Almondsbury, Bristol, and offers us an opportunity to improve degraded ex-grazing land which is currently very poor in biodiversity. Through management of existing hedgerows and planting around 10,000 native British trees this winter alone we hope to make this a haven for nature as well as a significant carbon sink in the years to come. 

We have just received the results of the site’s ecological survey which agrees there are no plant or animal species at the site that would be negatively impacted by the establishment of forets. Our next step is securing planning permission as our site exceeds the size for which trees can be planted without planning. After this we will begin work to improve an existing access track to the site which will allow us to transport the thousands of saplings to the site by vehicle over the winter months, and we’ll be considering the need for protective fencing to prevent deer damaging the young trees. 

We would not have reached this point without the immense support we have already received from companies and individuals across the region. We can’t mention every single individual, but do want to give a big shout out to our early supporters – Storm Consultancy, Mayden, CiteAb, Dialect, Ultraleap, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, Fourth Floor Creative, Bristol Weaving Mill, Royds Withy King, Bath Motor Club, NatAlt Design, Suited & Booted, Backpack, CollectEco, Cellesce, Kelpi, NaturBeads, EnvoPap and the Raby Family Trust. 

So you might have guessed it, but we’re going to have a LOT of trees to get in the ground this coming winter. Why winter? Well in the UK prime tree planting season is between late October and early March, and getting saplings into the ground in this period gives them the very best chance of survival. 

Have you joined our mailing list? Make sure you scroll to the bottom of this page and sign up now to be kept up to date with all Co-forest updates and news. 

Would you like to help us plant some trees? We would absolutely love to have you help out. Please drop us an email to add your name to our volunteer list – this doesn’t commit you to anything, it just means you will be notified of planting days and given the opportunity to come and join in!