CII boost for quarter of a million trees pledge
Press Release Wednesday 10 September 2008
Contact: Kerrigan Bell. 01309 691292; marketing@treesforlife.org.uk
Trees for Life, the award-winning conservation charity working to restore the Caledonian Forest in the Scottish Highlands, has received a £2,000 boost from the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), the leading professional organisation for people working in the insurance and financial services industries.
The £2,094 donation, which will fund the planting of 419 native trees, was raised through a CII promotion encouraging its members to provide their email address, allowing the CII to switch from paper to email mailings. For every email address that was supplied the CII donated 10p to Trees for Life. To date over £2,700 has been raised.
Alan Watson Featherstone, Trees for Life’s Founder and Executive Director, said: “We are extremely grateful to the CII Group for its generosity and inspiring support for our work. This donation will enable us to take a big step forward in our commitment to plant a quarter of a million trees during 2008 and 2009.”
He added: “We look forward to continuing our successful partnership in the future, and we hope it will inspire other companies to help restore Scotland’s native forests.”
Trees for Life’s ambitious drive to plant 250,000 new trees is the charity’s latest pledge to the United Nations’ Billion Trees Campaign – a global push to address climate change by encouraging people, organisations and businesses to plant seven billion trees worldwide by the end of 2009.
Martin Reid, Head of membership marketing at the CII said: “"Given climate change and other environmental issues facing the world, we wanted to reduce the number of paper mailings sent to our members and at the same time support Trees for Life’s excellent reforestation work in the Scottish Highlands. We are delighted to be doing our bit to make a difference.”
The Caledonian Forest originally covered much of the Scottish Highlands, with native pinewoods in a wild landscape of mountains, lochs and rivers. Today only one per cent of the forest survives.
Individuals and companies can support Trees for Life by having dedicated trees or groves planted for themselves or as gifts – creating a fantastic habitat for wildlife and people, as well as being a simple, positive step in the fight against climate change.
People and companies wanting to make a positive, personal difference to the environment while enjoying an inspiring visit to the wild Highlands can also join Conservation Volunteer Weeks. These suit all abilities and anyone over 18 years old can take part.
For more information or to support Trees for Life call 0845 458 3506, email trees@findhorn.org or visit www.treesforlife.org.uk.
Ends
Notes to editors
- Trees for Life aims to restore the Caledonian Forest to an area of 1,500 square kilometres in the Scottish Highlands west of Inverness. For further details please see www.treesforlife.org.uk
- Since planting its first trees in 1991 in Glen Affric, Trees for Life has planted over 650,000 trees. Its awards include 1991 UK Conservation Project of the Year and the Millennium Marque in 2000.
- On World Environment Day 2008 (5 June), Trees for Life pledged to plant 250,000 trees by the end of 2009 as part of the UN Environment Programme’s Billion Tree Campaign. The charity exceeded its 2007 pledge of 100,000 trees by over 9,000 trees.
- The CII is the world’s leading professional organisation for insurance and financial services. Its 92,000 members are committed to maintaining the highest standards of technical competence and ethical conduct. A robust framework of learning and development solutions enables the CII to support corporate partners and individuals across the industry. It ensures that all members comply with minimum standards and inspires many more to achieve advanced levels of technical and professional competence. www.cii.co.uk
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