Tree-lined routes across the terrestrial ecosystem connect urban and rural landscapes, roads and rivers, canals and railways which, when considered together, make up the linear forest. They conserve nature, clean the air, sequester carbon and promote health and wellbeing, right where we deliver pollutants. A novel appreciation of these integrating services equates to a new environmental discipline.
- How can we understand the full potential of these linear treed landscapes as green lungs, ecosystems, aesthetic heritage and economic assets?
- How can we develop a correct appreciation that can inform local, regional, national and trans-national policies?
- How do we develop these natural assets as resilient, proactively-managed national assets that are properly interconnected and no longer vulnerable to short-termism and subjective risk aversion?
This seminar offers a dynamic exchange between European colleagues. On the Continent, an integrated approach to tree-lined routes and linear forests is being pioneered by a number of inspired initiatives including from Poland, Germany, France, the Czech Republic and others. Never before has this carefully crafted group of people met together to discuss this vital subject. Here is a rare opportunity to meet with experts in the field, brought together at this prestigious venue by Neville Fay, founder of the Treework Seminar Series. Forging common links points to a wider, cross-cultural, integrated model for disciplines to cross-pollinate and collaborate. Our seminar aims to unpick sectoral interests and compartmentalised thinking. By sharing information and knowledge about natural resources, carbon sequestration, pollutant removal, flood management, economic and tourism benefits and forest production-potential, we lay a new foundation for what constitutes the national and European linear forest for the 21st century.
