The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) is working with England’s Community Forests to improve understanding of how community-planted trees establish, grow and deliver benefits over time, using an innovative monitoring app developed by TCV.
The app enables TCV’s inspectors to collect detailed information on tree survival, condition, species and location, helping create a robust evidence base for community tree planting and long-term woodland establishment. Combined with digital mapping, satellite imagery and emerging remote sensing technologies, it will provide new insights into the long-term environmental impact of trees planted by local communities.
Since launching in 2015, the I Dig Trees programme has enabled the planting of more than 4.5 million trees across 9,587 sites, involving 9,241 community groups and more than 152,000 volunteers. Together, they have helped create thousands of pocket forests, hedgerows and community green spaces across the UK.
Now, at the heart of the programme, is a monitoring app developed by TCV, bringing together field surveys, digital mapping and emerging technologies to build a more complete picture of how community-planted trees establish, grow and thrive over time. The app enables trained inspectors to record tree health, survival and establishment at community sites that have received free trees through the I Dig Trees programme.
Early findings are already providing valuable insight into how community-planted trees are establishing across the landscape. More than 30 hectares have now been accurately mapped. Of the 20,928 trees sampled across Community Forest regions, 16,336 live trees have been recorded, giving an overall survival rate of 78.1% across the sites inspected to date. This is a positive indication that many of these sites are developing well and have a strong likelihood of becoming mature woodland areas with established canopy cover in the years ahead. As more sites are surveyed, the dataset will provide increasingly valuable insight into long-term tree establishment and the factors that help young trees thrive.
The monitoring programme is helping England’s Community Forests build a clearer evidence base around community led tree planting establishment and long-term outcomes, supporting the shared ambition to create resilient woodlands that deliver lasting benefits for people and nature.
“I Dig Trees has always been about helping people take action for nature in their local communities. The monitoring app developed by TCV is helping us take that a step further by building a clearer understanding of what happens after planting day.
By combining field inspections, digital mapping and satellite technology, we’re generating robust evidence about how community-planted trees establish and grow. Early monitoring has already recorded a 78.1% survival rate from more than 20,000 sampled trees across Community Forest regions, which is very encouraging.
That insight will help us better understand the role community tree planting can play in tackling climate change, supporting wildlife, improving local environments and addressing tree inequality, ensuring more people can benefit from nature where they live.”
Douglas Palarm, Director of Fundraising, Partnerships and Communications, TCV
As the programme develops, inspection data will be combined with satellite imagery to monitor canopy development and woodland establishment over time.
Each monitored site is assigned a digital footprint. By capturing accurate shapefiles, planting boundaries and species information, TCV can build a detailed picture of where trees are located and how they are developing over time. This supports increasingly accurate modelling of future carbon sequestration, air quality improvements, biodiversity gains and habitat creation.
The monitoring programme is also creating a more detailed map of community tree planting across the country. Working closely with local groups, TCV is helping to accurately identify and record the location of planting sites, creating an increasingly comprehensive record of community woodlands, hedgerows and pocket forests.
This information could play an important role in addressing one of the growing challenges highlighted by the Woodland Trust’s recent Tree Equity research. The report found that 11 million people in England live in neighbourhoods with less than 10% tree canopy cover, limiting access to many of the environmental and wellbeing benefits trees provide. It also highlights the importance of supporting community-led action to improve access to trees and green space where they are needed most, an approach that sits at the heart of TCV’s I Dig Trees programme.
By combining location data with long-term monitoring, TCV’s approach can help identify where tree planting is delivering the greatest impact and where there may be opportunities for further woodland investment. In doing so, it supports broader efforts to improve tree equity, strengthen urban canopy cover, and ensure that more communities can benefit from nature on their doorstep.
Community involvement remains central to the programme’s success. Through I Dig Trees, local people are empowered not only to plant trees, but to care for them as they become established, helping create greener neighbourhoods that will benefit future generations.
The work forms part of a partnership with England’s Community Forests, the largest environmental regeneration initiative in England, which works with communities, landowners and businesses to create and improve woodlands in and around towns and cities. TCV’s monitoring app is helping support delivery of the national Trees for Climate programme, providing robust evidence on how community-planted trees establish, grow and deliver lasting benefits for people and nature.
“A key part of our mission as Community Forests is to understand all the community trees in our canopy, ensuring they are recognised, protected, and counted towards national tree planting efforts.
“By investing time in mapping and verifying planting sites with TCV, we are helping ensure national data is accurate and up to date. And by including these sites in our Trees for Climate Programme, we will be able to support the trees planted, helping ensure they become thriving and successful woodlands for local communities to benefit from and enjoy for years to come.”
Katie Wilson, Project Manager, Trees for Climate Programme Management Office
Through its Better Nature for All strategy, TCV has committed to planting more than 2.5 million additional trees and creating a network of more than 6,000 pocket forests by 2030. The new monitoring programme will help ensure that success is measured not simply by the number of trees planted, but by the lasting benefits they deliver for people, places and nature. By better understanding where trees are planted, how they establish and the impact they have over time, TCV is helping connect people together to protect and restore nature, delivering lasting benefits for both.
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