Volunteers plant 1,000 trees as Harrogate employer marks 70th anniversary

Volunteers from Harrogate employer Belzona have marked the company’s 70th anniversary by planting more than 1,000 trees in the Royal Forest of Knaresborough.
Volunteers from Harrogate employer Belzona have marked the company’s 70th anniversary by planting more than 1,000 trees in the Royal Forest of Knaresborough.Volunteers from Harrogate employer Belzona have marked the company’s 70th anniversary by planting more than 1,000 trees in the Royal Forest of Knaresborough.
Volunteers from Harrogate employer Belzona have marked the company’s 70th anniversary by planting more than 1,000 trees in the Royal Forest of Knaresborough.

It was the first in a series of environmental activities the manufacturer, which specialises in protective coatings for infrastructure and machinery, will be taking part in under an ambitious three-year partnership with the White Rose Forest.

The venture will see Belzona employees plant a total of seven million trees in the White Rose Forest, which is the community forest for North and West Yorkshire, 
by 2025.

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In a presentation at Belzona’s 70th anniversary celebrations, Dr Thomas Sloan, Forest Science and Policy Fellow at the United Bank of Carbon (UBoC), said: “Planting trees is a very good way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. New woodland creation is going to form part of our strategy to get to net zero.

“The UK Government is committed to reaching net-zero by 2050, and within the White Rose Forest region, some of the local authorities are planning to meet net-zero emissions before that, so in the late 2030s.”

The White Rose Forest’s Action Plan 2021–2025 states that seven million trees, the equivalent of 4,900 football pitches or 3,500 hectares, could be planted in North and West Yorkshire between 2021 and 2025.

It goes on to explain the positive environmental impact this would have in terms of carbon sequestration: “We estimate, for example, that if we were to increase tree cover in North and West Yorkshire from 11 per cent to 19 per cent by 2050, we could annually sequester up to 50 per cent of potential residual CO2 emissions from 2050.”