The Times’s new campaign: Planting the Future

GETTY IMAGES

‘The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago,” runs a Chinese proverb. “The second-best time is now.” We know this to be true, climate science tells us so. Trees clean the air we breathe, forests are the lungs of the land, the lockers-up of carbon and the providers of leafy shelter for wildlife.

They have an emotional function too, turning the planting of a sapling — a tree that is likely to outlive us — into a kind of contract with our children and grandchildren. It is a combination of these factors that has prompted The Times to mark this year’s Celebration Day, next Sunday, with a campaign to plant 5,000 trees. The National Trust has pledged to select and implant this