Forests and habitats around the world are being devastated by the phenomenon known as the “tragedy of the commons”.  

To protect nature effectively, we need to spend time in its healing presence.

Read the open letter and discussion paper, compiled from contributions made by attendees of the Beyond Offsets roundtable at University of Oxford, 21st June 2024.

It’s currently the rainy season in East Africa and planting and restoration activities are in full swing. Joshua, Edwin, Korir, Mercy and Wycliffe have been spending a lot of time visiting all of the projects, away from their families.

Our trustee reviews Hedgelands: A wild wander around Britain’s greatest habitat, which waxes lyrical on the subject of British country hedgerows.

The humble hedge is the face of much of Britain. However, its ubiquity has led to the hedge being overlooked and taken for granted. After decades of neglect, the hedge is finding favour once more as enthusiasts come to the defence of this once-loved asset.

This month I travelled to Kenya to visit the communities and local organisations with whom we are working and to spend time with our amazing local team to see the impact of our work on the ground.

Some organisations focus on dealing with carbon – the cause of the climate crisis. Others deal with the consequences – working to support climate-vulnerable communities. ITF is responding to both. 

The question is how we can bend the graph quickly? How many species can we save? And how can we mitigate the impacts for those who will suffer the most?

We listened to families and leaders and two things struck me most powerfully – the desire of the Batwa to maintain their connection with their ancient traditions and their determination to find a way forward in the toughest of circumstances.

“We are often looking at the big picture, seeing landscapes being steadily restored. We see the forests and the woods but we also care about the individual tree.”

Summer ebbs away, the evenings begin to draw in and it won’t be long before the clocks change. And so the tree planting season gets under way.

If these trees are not going to cause a danger to public safety, are they not best left to stand and fall in their own time?

“As I perch here quietly on a fallen log I feel a gentle internal shift towards organic time. It is a peaceful summer’s day in the forest, the sun shining through the oak and beech canopy.”

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

How upstream land degradation can have brutal knock on effects downstream.

Some people are dog people, some people aren't. But James Whitehead believes that deep down, we're all tree people.

Some people measure the value of our natural world on an abacus but there are hidden costs when we reduce nature to numbers.

James and the team in Africa recently visited our partners in Uganda to see how communities are planting trees that build resilience and transform landscapes for a better future.

To make the biggest difference for the communities we work with we can’t be complacent about what we do and how we do it. This has always been the case, but it is even more important now in the context of worsening climate change.