A team from Edinburgh Trams spent some time before Christmas volunteering with the Borders Forest Trust to help plant trees near Moffatt, as part of the Trust’s efforts to re-wild the Scottish Borders.
They helped to plant a mixture of Willow, Alder and Rowan trees, to form an area of woodland which will help to support the local ecosystem, capturing carbon and re-wilding areas of historic woodlands. These are trees which prefer wetter soils and were specifically chosen as historically native species which would thrive in the area. They won’t be used for timber and will form a new protected forested area.
Michael Dabrowski, Renewals Manager at Edinburgh Trams, said: “The work being done by the Borders Forest Trust is vitally important, and we were pleased to support them in a small way. We hope to make it an annual trip, so we can continue to do our part to support their mission, and see how the area develops over the next few years.”
The Edinburgh Trams team started early and were lucky to have fine weather for their day of volunteering. During the day they spent the day preparing the ground and planting the saplings with anti-vole protection as demonstrated by the team from Borders Forest Trust.
The charity was established in 2009 and are a small but very busy team who work with volunteers and organisations such as Edinburgh Trams to re-establish native species of trees and flowers to a 300 acre area of land they own in the Southern Uplands.