Everyone wants to live in a healthier, happier, greener world – and one of the ways to help achieve that goal is quite simply to plant more trees.

In this column, I want to share the good news that here in the West Midlands we are showing our commitment to the environment by planting trees at a rate of 300 a day - and I want to encourage Birmingham’s Irish community to get involved and help turn Brum green.

More than 320,000 trees have now been registered on the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Virtual Forest, which allows people to record when they have planted a tree. That’s an increase of 120,000 over the past 12 months.

Trees remove carbon from the air, they reduce problems of flooding, they act as a filter for pollution, they encourage wildlife and contribute to the general quality of life of a community.

As we face the increasing effects of climate change, and work towards becoming a net zero region within the next two decades, these benefits have never been more vital.

Since January 2020, the WMCA has been encouraging residents and businesses to make their own contribution by registering the trees they have planted on the Virtual Forest.

Since then, we’ve been planting 100,000 trees each and every year right across our region.

I’ve had the chance to plant some trees myself over the past year during visits we’ve made to communities doing some amazing work to protect, restore and enhance our natural environment for the benefit of us all. So, if anyone has planted a tree in the past year and has yet to add it to our Virtual Forest, I would encourage them to do so.

Thanks to the thousands of trees that are being planted, Birmingham and the West Midlands are getting greener every day. I know I can rely on our Irish community to play their part in this remarkable project, which will bring benefits for generations to come.

To register a tree on the Virtual Forest visit: www.wmvirtualforest.co.uk

Welcome to another Birmingham Irish Association news update

We publish news and project updates keeping you up to date with details regarding our services and events, as well as other local developments and other news that will be of interest to our clients as well as other visitors.