BTCV : CVNI : Tree Campaign

We'd like to wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year...

This month we're looking back at National Tree Week to see what we were up to and featuring Coastal Sand Dunes as our priority habitat.

We hope to see you refreshed and revitalised in January (try out our Green Gym) when we'll be offering plenty of opportunities for you to get involved in helping Northern Ireland's unique and wonderful biodiversity.

Coastal Sand Dunes
Coastal sand dunes form where a beach is big enough to allow sand to dry out between high tides and where there are winds to blow the dry sand landwards.

The sand is trapped by dune grasses which grow through the accumulating layers of sand.

The dunes around Northern Ireland were formed thousands of years ago and support a wide range of plant and animal life - particularly insects. Dunes are an important habitat for the Marsh Fritillary.

Degradation of sand dunes is caused by erosion, lower water tables, overgrazing, recreational use, development and invasive species like common sea-buckthorn (see photo above).
Read more about Coastal Sand Dunes

Cutting trees down for Tree Week
For three days during National Tree Week, Conservation Volunteers' biodiversity team and some eager volunteers cut down trees for conservation. Not much is known about coppicing in Ireland, but some of this particular woodland is being overtaken by sycamore.
Find out more

Park Life
On a cold and frosty morning at the start of National Tree Week, children and teachers from Enniskillen Nursery School planted 120 native trees, ably helped by Conservation Volunteers.
See what happened

Celebrating Tree Week in Coleraine
Local schoolchildren marked the start of the tree planting season at Cornfield Community Woodland in Coleraine on 27 November. Around 200 pupils braved the cold weather to plant a variety of native trees
Read this story

There are currently no courses during January

Courses are listed here or contact Linda on L.Wilson@btcv.org.uk or 028 9185 2817

Botanical Field Surveyors
The Northern Ireland Countryside Survey (NICS) research programme will employ eight botanical field surveyors in 2009 to complete further quadrat recording and vegetation mapping in Northern Ireland.

The jobs will be formally advertised in January, but for more information in the meantime you can download a flyer here (this is a very small Word document).

Make Green Gym your New Year's Resolution!
Will you over indulge this Christmas? Short days getting you down? Join the Saturday Green Gym to fight the blues and cut back those curves.

This practical conservation group meets every week and will help you keep fit whilst making new friends in a fun and friendly atmosphere as well as improving the local environment in and around Belfast.
Find out how to get involved

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