One of the first projects to emerge out of the Food, Farming and Forestry action group, was a community tree planting project aiming to plant large numbers of trees locally for carbon capture, with a plan to map all the areas in and around the town identifying where this might be possible.

The Woodland Trust supported the project in November last year by donating six hundred native trees as part of the Big Climate Fightback weekend, which were planted by local community volunteers and Ashburton primary school children. This took place on privately owned land that consists of existing woodland and a new young woodland planted ten years ago, also using local volunteer help. A community seed and tree nursery is being established here, growing trees from local provenance seed for future plantings in the area.

This winter, the children from the primary school have started a town mapping project, identifying all the spaces in the town that might be available for tree planting and looking at different types of trees for different locations eg. fruit and nut trees, hedgerow trees etc. The project is due to finish at the end of the school year. The 3FFFs Land Group is also planning to map all of the land outside of the town, contacting landowners and farmers and offering advice on planting schemes and available grants and is hoping for some funding to support such a large undertaking.

There is now a plan – promoting trees for carbon capture up to 2025, planting a minimum of one tree per Ashburton resident annually, that's four thousand plus trees per year for the next five years.

It is important that all new plantings are maintained by the community and the use of local woodlands promoted for woodland management activities, sustainable forestry, nature connection, health and wellbeing.

‍