Was great to be part of @OxfordFOE1 @OxfordCity & Marston Community Garden's tree planting event last Saturday!

This video captures the essence of a very positive day, which demonstrated #TreePlanting at its best!

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Over 170 people turned up, planting >650 trees in just a few hours, all on the recreation ground in Marston - land that is very unlikely to receive natural tree regeneration and is embedded in the community that uses it. 2/

This sort of action is so incredibly positive for the people involved - smiling faces and the empowerment that comes with doing something positive to tackle the climate and ecological crises. 3/

BUT tree planting is not the solution to climate change: we need to put a huge focus on cutting CO2 emissions from across all sectors of society. 4/

Tree planting will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, if done thoughtfully: right trees, right place, planted in the right way! (Same rules to optimise tree planting). And we need to remove CO2, ALL pathways that achieve <2 degree temp rise, involve negative emissions. 5/

So YES, let's get out, bring people together & plant trees. Great to see pledges from the major political parties.... 6/

But what mobilisation of local communities to plant trees really shows: WE CARE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE - follow through on national & international targets to CUT CO2 EMISSIONS. So RESTORE and PROTECT NATURE please, but don't think planting trees is a universal solution! 7/

@UKLabour @Conservatives @LibDems @TheGreenParty @jeremycorbyn @BorisJohnson @joswinson @jon_bartley @sianberry 8/8