Ellie Potts is The Oakupy Project Coordinator with Partnership member, Arkbound Foundation. Below she shares the success of Arkbound Foundation’s recent tree planting project.

This summer, we were made aware of the alarming 750,000 oak trees that were due to be destroyed if nurseries could not sell them.

Based on the fantastic initiative created and circulated by Extinction Rebellion, we decided to run our own tree-saving scheme ‘The Oakupy Project’. This project, completed in December, saw 1,000 native oak trees find homes in the Bristol and South West region.

We provided the trees free of charge to the community, in order for them to ‘oakupy’ places and spaces, from community centres and youth clubs to private woodlands and schools.

It was just fantastic to reach out to the community and have so many lovely people interested in saving these trees. 

With set-backs caused by changing tiers and social distancing rules, this community project faced some difficulties. However, through the dedication of volunteer planting groups, we were able to bring the community together with a shared planting aim, whilst keeping socially distanced and staying safe.

The Oakupy Project would not have been a success without the support of Triodos Foundation, Smaller Footprints (Clifton), The Lord Barnaby Foundation and St Pauls Learning Centre (who acted as a COVID safe oak collection point) and the many volunteer planters we reached following our initial Partnership member blog post.

At Arkbound, we are so grateful for the help we received to put this project into action and would like to thank everyone who got involved. We hope to run another environmental community project in the near future.

To keep up to date with our projects, visit our website here: https://www.arkfound.org/ or follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @arkbounduk