Dead christmas trees are planted on this beach – here’s why

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Thousands of Christmas trees have been buried on this beach here in Blackpool this is actually a tradition locals come out every January with their Spades and they dig these long trenches and they bury Christmas trees in the ground and these sandunes which I’m standing on here beneath my feet a thousands small

Christmas trees this this may seem a little bit wacky you know what it is and that’s why I love it but it’s also doing a few other things it’s bringing together a community getting them outside it’s combating waste it’s protecting a town using soft Coastal defenses but crucially it’s also

Restoring a habitat and that’s sand Junes I’m interested in nature Restoration in however it manifest sometimes it’s in big ways sometimes it’s in small ways and sometimes it’s in pretty peculiar ways like planting Christmas trees on a beach and I had to come and see this for myself so besides being just huge accumulations of sand sand Junes are

Actually really fascinating habitat sand Junes actually move through a cycle so you have the younger smaller Junes at the front and then as you come through more sound accumulates and the Junes get bigger they get older and what you’re actually seeing here is the process of succession so the land here

Is becoming more stabilized and it’s becoming more vegetated unlike other Coastal habitats sandunes are not formed by the sea but instead the wind as sand dries out it’s blown up the beach and into debris this might be low-lying plants rubbish or old Driftwood sand gathers either side and the June begins

To form and Pioneer plant species are able to colonize maram grass is an iconic species of sandes it’s a really rough and tough grass with long roots reaching down to freshw the sources below these roots bind the June together and form what’s known as an embryo June

A baby June and the further back you go the larger and more stable the Junes get there’s more plants here which adds more organic matter to the sand making it more suitable for other plant species to live and sand Junes are home to many different species might feel like it now

In the dead of winter when you’re wet and cold but really they’re thriving you can find many different species thriving within the variety of tune habitat from rare reptiles like sand lizards to Tiny unique liver warts like this tiny petal W not to mention June slacks which are awesome little habitats holding

Fresh water but as a whole it’s the constantly changing Dynamic nature of Junes which make them so valuable to Wildlife and sand Junes in the UK are in Decline since the 1990s we’ve lost around one3 of all of our Junes and in Europe they’re classified as a habitat

That is most at risk and the biggest threat is something known as over stabilization essentially in order for sandunes to be thriving they need to be open and dynamic and able to change but what’s happened is that too many have reached this later successional stage and they’ve become too stable now this

Has been caused for a number of reasons one being a decrease in animal disturbance so we’re grazing our animals Less on sandunes so they’re missing that disturbance which comes from large herbals roaming around and also mix mosis now mix mosis has decimated wild rabbit populations that would be borrowing in these sand June

Systems and Studies have actually found that increases in atmospheric nitrogen have caused this accelerated plant growth and Wetland June systems have actually been drying out with warmer longer summers so when you cop all of this with you know like the classic exploitation and land juice change it’s

No wonder that a dynamic habitat like a sand June has actually been declining so what can we do to combat this loss of sandunes well one thing you can do is you can plant Christmas trees now I absolutely love this because you know what it’s not rocket science sandunes to

Naturally form they need something to build upon now naturally this might be a full tree this could be some vegetation trouble with this is that this can take an awful long time to happen but what the people of Blackpool have discovered is that if you dig these

Long trenches and put Christmas trees in them it’s actually the perfect building blocks for sand Junes the filed sand Junes project is set up by local councils the wildlife trust and the environment agency old Christmas trees are rounded up from the local area and brought to the beach where hundreds of

Volunteers come down and get stuck in putting the trees into the beach the UK throws away something like 6 million Christmas trees every year 6 million ending up in landfall now I know there’s some other more sustainable ways that we can get rid of trees but this this just seems

Like the best solution since the start of the project over 11,000 Christmas trees have been buried and along with everything these sandunes are a soft seed defense absorbing strong winds and high tides during storms non-native plant species have been removed new June slacks have been created and over 400

Rare sand lizards have been reintroduced here too all around there’s a lot to admire about this project and the sand Junes here what I love most about it is that it’s getting the community out and together to go and work towards something which is which is like restoring a habitat and that’s awesome

You know rubing can manifest in many different ways and it can happen any way and like sometimes you just have to get creative and put Christmas trees into the sand in the description I put links to to those running this project so go and check that out and if you’ve enjoyed

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