Sophie writes, “After various stints over the last ten years with international charities and non-profits working in the Netherlands, India, USA, and Africa on a range of issues spanning from environmental issues, womens’ and girls’ rights, climate change, water security, and microfinance, I’m now back in the UK and currently working with The Woodland Trust. The Charity have some great partnerships across the UK, including with The National Trust – also reminding me of many a day wandering around the beautiful NT grounds at Stowe. The Woodland Trust have just launched a nationwide campaign, Big Climate Fightback, and will be planting thousands of trees across the UK over the coming months, with the aim to get more people involved and aware of the importance of getting more native trees into the ground to tackle the climate emergency for both people and wildlife. BBC Countryfile came to film at Avoncliff Wood (one of the Woodland Trust woodlands and coincidentally very close to where I now live near Bath) in autumn 2019, in relation to the big tree planting push that the Trust is doing. I ended up being interviewed very briefly by John Craven (Newsround and Countryfile presenter and icon of the last 30 years) whilst getting my hands dirty planting a tree! It aired on BBC on Sunday 8 December 2019, featuring a colleague of mine also discussing ash dieback, which is devastating our native ash trees across the country, and I imagine impacting the grounds at Stowe too.”
