Forest Holidays proudly supporting the #iwill4nature campaign

Forest news

01/02/19

The 25 Year Environment Plan, published in January 2018, sets out the government’s plan for an improved environment. The plan cannot be delivered by government alone. Action from all of us will be required to improve the environment over the next 25 years.

At Forest Holidays, we are privileged to be in our small, beautiful corners of Britain’s amazing forests, corners that were often overlooked or neglected and that we have brought back to life. Our promise, hand in hand with our local partners, is to help the forests thrive, so that they are better than ever for future generations. There’s a bigger picture for us, too. Behind our three pillars of our purpose: people, nature and local communities, we have detailed action plans and bold commitments, which we are launching in 2019. To support this, we are joining forces with partners from across all sectors to make 2019 a "Year of Green Action" and demonstrate how, together, we can achieve our environmental aims and improve the environment through collective action.

Children and young people are at the heart of the year. To help engage young people the charity Step Up To Serve has developed an environment theme for the national #iwill Campaign in 2019 - #iwill4nature.

Forest Holidays are proud to be supporting the campaign through our pledges of support:

• We want to reach as many young people as possible every year by allowing our Forest Rangers the time to volunteer in the local communities of which we are a part of, delivering sessions that will educate and inspire them to take action in their communities.
• Through our partnership with the UK’s 15 National Parks, an initiative called ‘National Park Futures’, we aim to connect at least 20,000 young people with nature over the next 5 years. Our travel fund will ensure that young people can access the National Parks and our support of National Park education projects will inspire young people to take action to safeguard their local environments.
• We support the goals of Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan, to become “the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it’ and our detailed woodland management plans for each of our locations help us achieve this. They provide a checklist of maintenance actions to ensure that we care for the forests we work in and longer-term actions to make a positive contribution to enhance wildlife habitat. This includes putting up bird and bat boxes and other initiatives to help wildlife thrive. We will provide opportunities for young people to get involved and learn valuable skills to protect wildlife in their local communities.
• We’re helping to raise money for one of the country’s boldest environment projects, the creation of the National Forest across 200 square miles of the Midlands. With our customers support we’re helping to raise enough funds to plant 120,000 trees or 65 hectares. We will make sure young people, visiting with their families, understand the impact of their donation and how they can continue an environmental social action journey by inspiring them with stories of other young people’s actions related to the National Forest.

We were honoured to be part of the official #iwill4nature launch on 31 January at ZSL London Zoo, attended by the Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and led by a group of inspirational young people.