England-based company growing thousands of ‘giant’ American trees in Wales

Stephen Price

A company headquartered in Greater Manchester is in the progress of planting thousands of giant North American coniferous trees - the largest trees on earth - in two locations in Wales as part of a 'global carbon capture project'.

The Giant Sequoia is the world’s largest tree species, as well as the fastest growing conifer. Famous sequoias have grown up to 300 feet tall, 36 feet wide, with volumes over 1400 m3, and are known to be as much as 3500 years old.

A Sequoia Grove can capture as much as 10x more CO2 per acre than a natural UK woodland over the period of 100 years, increasing over time. Each Sequoia is planted on a 100m2 plot together with 3 native UK species to promote biodiversity.

Giant sequoia trees were once a feature of the UK pre-Ice Age. Because of this, they grow well in many areas of the UK and aren’t considered an invasive species.

To grow these trees and "help fight climate change", the team at The Great Reserve, previously operating as One Tree, One Life is buying land in the UK that reflects the sequoia’s native homeland. This project is called The Great Reserve and aims to create sequoia groves across the UK that will act as carbon sinks.

The Great Reserve currently has three sites in the UK - one in Hampshire, England and two in Wales, on the outskirts of Abergavenny and Brecon, which allow supporters to 'Adopt a Sequoia' for £1,2750.oo or to pay a monthly subscription of £15 spread over 85 months.

Abergavenny's location, named Graig Syddi - a 70 acre plot - was marketed for £150,000 before being snapped up by The Great Reserve.

Planting is said to be 95% complete, with the company calling it "previously felled coniferous commercial woodland that we will be replanting with a mix of Sequoias, nurse crop conifers, and native broadleaves."

The company aim to plan 1540 Giant Sequoias on this location.

Brecon's location, Pen y Wern, aims for a more modest 517 Giant Sequoias, and planting is 100% complete.

The land is described as being previously felled woodlands: "The soil is superb and we anticipating excellent growth of trees planted in 2020/21. Native trees planted together with the Sequoias were a mix of Silver Birch, Oak, and Rowan."

 

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Each sequoia is planted on a 100m2 piece of land, along with three species of tree that are native to the UK. which The Great Reserve say is to promote biodiversity and ensure that species which call the UK their home and feed on native species, still have the resources they need to thrive, while the sequoia absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it.

Henry Emson, founder of One Life One Tree told The Telegraph:  “The climate in the UK is very good for them.”

“We haven’t had one failure, they’ve all taken off. Sequoias are peaceful giants … They have been here for 160 or more years already and they are not a problem with native species."

Under threat

Sequoias are now on the IUCN Endangered Species Red List. Over 95% of their original numbers were logged for timber harvesting over the past 200 years. More recently however the impacts of climate change have been diminishing their numbers, which now stand today at an estimated 70,000.

Superheated wildfires caused by drought and excess forest debris are able to penetrate their thick red bark, causing fatalities of as many as 10% of their number per year.

Efforts to protect the old growth trees in their native US habitat are extensive, but the situation is challenging and not likely to improve according to The Great Reserve's founder.

The Great Reserve's aim is to "create a safe haven for the species in the UK by planting and protecting young Sequoias, to become the old growth groves of the future".

Greenwashing

Unlike Stump Up For Trees, which has planted half a million native broadleaf trees on Bryn Arw, also near Abergavenny, The Great Reserve's primary focus is a conifer which doesn't grow naturally in the UK - and there is also growing suspicion of outside companies buying land in Wales for 'green' purposes, with little benefit to or involvement from local communities - especially considering the lifespan of trees can be over two thousand years, forever altering the local woodland makeup.

With many people concerned about the fact that the trees aren't native to the UK, the website's FAQs section shares: "Our primary goal is to create a network of old growth Giant Sequoias in the UK to replicate what few are left in their native habitat in the USA.

"Effectively an insurance against the worsening impacts of climate change that has brought about droughts, superheated wildfires, and greater bark beetle fatalities. Sequoias were native to the UK pre-Ice Age. More recently they returned here during the Victorian period by those facinated by their size and magnificence. We now have many thousands of Sequoias in the UK and they have proven to be entirely non-invasive.

"We get asked regularly about why we are not planting exclusively native species. Our response is that we are facing a very real climate emergency caused by an increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to find a response to this escalating issue that is in proportion to the cause, the mass burning of fossil fuels.

"There is currently no industrial viable solution on offer, so we must turn to nature and plant trees. The primary resource that trees use up that is in scarce supply is land, or more accurately land with owners who are willing to give up any commercial use and dedicate their asset to tree planting for carbon capture. As land is the limiting factor for tree planting, we must plant trees that are the most efficient at carbon capture per acre."

 

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They add: "The species most capable of carbon capture per acre is the Giant Sequoia, due to its massive volume accumulated over time. Even over a 100 year period, a Sequoia grove can capture in the region of 10x more CO2 vs. a native tree woodland. We are not ignoring the plight of native trees, we care deeply about them and would never cut down or harm a native woodland. In fact we plant three native trees for each Sequoia at our sites to promote biodiversity.

"Oak is our predominant tree of choice given it supports more biodiversity than any other native tree. Two little known facts are that Giant Sequoias were once native to the UK pre-ice age, and they do not propagate in the UK due to a lack of wildfires needed to open their seed cones. They are totally non-invasive for that reason.

"Bottom line is the world is heating up at an alarming rate. That in itself is a major threat to UK native woodlands. Our project is a response to today’s climate emergency by unleashing the power of the most mighty CO2 capturing tree on earth, that not only removes CO2, but holds onto it for over 1000 years.

"We care deeply about native trees, but we also care about our planet, and this is our way of doing the maximum to save it, and the diversity of species and ecosystems that it supports. We are looking big picture, and long term."

"To put this in further context, according to Timothy J. Fahey, professor of ecology in the department of natural resources at Cornell University, “An approximate value for a 50-year-old oak forest would be 30,000 pounds of carbon dioxide sequestered per acre,”. That is 15 tonnes. By comparison a Giant Sequoia grove will be closer to 200 tonnes over the same period, using UK growth rates seen in Sequoias that have been in the UK for over 150 years."