Talk – Benedict Bate,The Woodland Trust

Speaker: Benedict Bate

Title: The work of the Woodland Trust in Scotland

Trees grow naturally in Scotland so why is tree cover so low at 18% vs 47% in Europe? The Woodland Trust seeks to plant, protect, and restore native woodlands in the United Kingdom.

What is the Woodland Trust doing in Scotland to increase tree cover and hence carbon capture and biodiversity? A look at the Celtic Rain Forest in Scotland and some of the larger Scottish projects the Woodland Trust is involved in.

Benedict is an accountant to trade and has worked in manufacturing and retail as well as the University sector where he was a lecturer and until recently the Leader of the Accounting and Finance Group at Edinburgh Napier University. He has been a keen outdoor activities person since the early 1970s and it was during his travels that he realised what a ‘wet desert’ much of Scotland had become due to extensive overgrazing by sheep and deer. As an orienteer he has experienced a wide variety of Scottish forest terrain and is particularly fond of the pine woods in the Glen Affric area.

He is always keen to persuade others that planting trees in Scotland is an investment with many future benefits, such as biodiversity, recreation, wellbeing,  forest products, water quality and flood management.

This season our talks will take place in-person only as we do not have the facility to live-stream them.  Where possible, we will record the talks and the recording will be made available on the members’ page of the website as soon after the talk as possible.

The talks will take place in the Lecture Theatre at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. All talks will begin at 7.30pm. Our talks are free and are open to non-members.  All we ask is that you make a small donation at the door or perhaps buy a raffle ticket if you can.  For those who have not attended a lecture at RBGE before, entry is via the main reception: 20a Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR (not far from the East Gate).