One million trees in one day is a project that was dreamt up a few years ago by a small group of people but is only coming to fruition now. Myself and a few more committee members from Swinford Tidy Towns attended a conference back in November 2012 where we first heard of this project, (of course as soon as I got home I sent in an application!). The original aim of the project was to plant 1 million trees in the island of Ireland over 24 hours.

One Million Trees in One Day is a charity, not-for-profit, cross border, community and environmental initiative which will plant a million young native trees at many different sites across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in twenty-four hours. Its true aim however is to establish individual trees and woodlands in both rural and urban areas that will grow for many years and which will provide valuable resources, beneficial ecosystem services and a lasting legacy for future generations.

There was a huge number of applications for the initiative, Swinford Tidy Towns applied for 1750 trees! and along with a lack of funding, the project was under severe pressure. The planting date was pushed back to March 2013 and when 3 major funding partners pulled out just before Christmas 2012, the whole project nearly collapsed. Thankfully the project stayed on track (though on a smaller scale) and some of the planting was completed in April 2013.

one million trees in one day with swinford tidy towns

One Million Trees In One Day Planting

It was difficult enough to get a photo because of the sun, as well as trying to get the volunteers to pose for a minute! Photo: f/11, 1/500, ISO-320, @ 23mm.

On Saturday 8th of March we finally collected our second allocation of trees for planting. Last Saturday we finally got to plant the trees, Scotts Pine, Mountain ash, Silver Birch, Alder and Whitethorn were the species we received.

Michael Maye
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