The Clyde, Fife, Lothians and Forth ‘Climate Forest’ initiatives invest in communities with the fewest trees and greatest climate vulnerability across central Scotland by protecting existing woods and planting new trees, and they have now been further supported by almost £1million of additional funding from the Scottish Government.

South Lanarkshire is part of the Clyde Climate Forest initiative, which has planted nearly five million trees across the Glasgow City Region over the last five years.

The Clyde Climate Forest identified 16 urban target neighbourhoods across the eight local authorities of the Glasgow City Region where there is a low amount of tree canopy cover and high vulnerability to climate risks like flash flooding and urban overheating, with Rutherglen, Blantyre and Burnbank having been selected in South Lanarkshire.

Councillor Robert Brown, Chair of the council’s Community and Enterprise Resources Committee, said: “Through the 1000 Trees campaign, the Clyde Climate Forest aims to plant at least 1000 new urban trees in each of the selected communities, and I am delighted that so far 6276 trees have been planted in South Lanarkshire’s target neighbourhoods.

“This new funding will help our plans to push ahead in this transformative work that will bring many social, health and environmental benefits, including capturing carbon, protecting the environment, increasing biodiversity, improving access to nature and supporting local communities to become more climate-resilient.”

The further funding will also be used to pilot a new project to engage rural communities in understanding local climate impacts. Over the coming year, community engagement will be undertaken at Douglas Water and Rigside with the aim of identifying locations and delivering tree-planting to increase rural canopy cover.

Established in 2021 by the creation of the Clyde Climate Forest, the wider Climate Forest projects work with local councils, community groups and landowners to achieve the goal of planting 35million trees by 2035 and have been backed with almost £13million in Scottish Government funding.