If you’ve known about Tred for a while, then chances are you already know that the Tred card plants trees. (Honestly if you still didn’t know that by this point then we’ve gone wrong somewhere along the way!)
What you might not know is that many of the trees planted by Tred customers are being planted here in the UK by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.
Sometimes we get asked questions about the tree planting that is supported by Tred card customers. Things like ‘How do you know the trees are really being planted?’ or ‘are the trees cut down again?’ or ‘are they planted in a big non-biodiverse plantation?’.
The good news is we can answer all these questions with ease, because we went out to help plant the very trees that Yorkshire Wildlife Trust will be planting for us, and we saw first-hand the level of care they take to ensure the new trees benefit the local ecosystem and blend with the natural landscape.
Planting trees in-person
It was an early start for the Tred team when we went up to Ingleborough to join Yorkshire Wildlife Trust on one of their planting days. We were also joined by Team VAGA,a running apparel brand which use our carbon tracking & offsetting to make every item they sell carbon neutral.
It was about an hour’s walk up from the nearest road to the section of reserve being rewilded, and then it was time to get planting after a tutorial by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. They showed us the best types of ground to plant a tree in (stick to grassy areas, not in the boggy areas, or in the heather), how far to space them out, and how to plant them so they blend more naturally into the landscape (the key is to make sure you don’t plant them in straight lines). We had a great array of different trees species on hand, mixing in downy birch, oak, grey willow, goat willow, eared willow, rowan, blackthorn, hawthorn and bird cherry. These native tree species are picked by Yorkshire WildlifeTrust to thrive in the chilly, windy conditions of the Yorkshire Dales.
As you can see from the pictures, we got uncharacteristically good weather for our tree planting day. This was lucky for us, but the folks at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have been out planting trees right through from January this year come rain, sun, snow or shine. It’s very rewarding, but it’s certainly no easy job.
Between us, we managed to plant 1,800 trees on our tree planting day. That’s enough trees to absorbe a huge amount of CO2. This season Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have been able to plant over 50,000. As we rapidly grow and more people start spending on their Tred cards, more funding will be available from our customers’ interchange fees to fund more tree planting with Yorkshire wildlife Trust.
If you want to help plant more trees, both here in Yorkshire and around the world, without it costing you anything, sign up for Tred.
