29 August 2025
01:11:30
Rai Lewis
OVERVIEW:
Curly Steve and Rai discuss the urgent need to restore Cornwall’s lost woodlands and why the work of Plant One Cornwall offers both hope and practical solutions. Over 70% of England and Wales’ ancient woodlands have been lost or damaged, threatening irreplaceable habitats and biodiversity. In this episode of Searching for a Greener Room, we sit down with Rai Lewis, co-founder of Plant One Cornwall, to explore how communities, landowners, and businesses are working together to restore Cornwall’s lost woodlands. Rai shares the story behind Plant One Cornwall, why planting the right trees in the right places matters more than numbers, and how genetic diversity is key to long-term resilience. We dive into the pressures on land use in Britain, common misconceptions about woodland creation, and the challenge of balancing biodiversity with carbon targets. Rai also offers five practical tips anyone can start today, from collecting rainwater to reducing meat consumption. If you’re curious about how woodland restoration connects to climate action, community, and hope for the future, this conversation is for you. Subscribe for more inspiring stories, listen to other episodes of Searching for a Greener Room, or visit www.plantonecornwall.com to learn more.TOPICS
UncategorisedAVAILABLE ON:
WATCH ON YOUTUBE
Over the past century, around 70% of England and Wales's ancient woodland has been lost or damaged, largely through conifer plantations, agriculture, and invasive species. This threatens irreplaceable habitats. Hi, I'm Curly Steve and I'm searching for a greener room.
Ray Lewis is the co-founder of Plant One Cornwall, a community project restoring native woodlands across the county by connecting land owners, businesses, and local people to plant the right trees in the right places. Ry, welcome to the
show. Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me here. Oh, it's nice to see you. Yeah, you. So, um, let's rewind. Tell me uh how life was like as a as a child and where were you? Oh, where was I? So, I grew up uh in Essex. Mhm. Uh the south of Essex, which is particularly built up now. Um and actually I'm a very I had a very It started out as quite like a rural life
um but in a little village or a town. Uh but then we moved and I was in a city. Um, so I actually have quite an urban upbringing. Absolutely no knowledge of the countryside. Um, yeah. So everything I've kind of done as I've kind of gone into sustainability and environmentalism I've learned along the way. Now my life is very different to what it was like when I was a kid. So what So where did you find sort of
sanctuary when you were um what in the city? Yeah. Just sitting in my window really looking out because we lived we had um quite a lot of oak trees around the house. So just sitting in the window and looking out the window was kind of kind of imagined uh being in more not tropical just more rural environments just being in the environment more because I was yeah kind of in a very builtup area didn't really
get to experience I don't know going out and the bits I did were actually very small thinking about it now they were so um they were very contained woodlands on a golf course you know or something like that you know so Yeah, there were times where we'd kind of go and break into the local golf course and go running around on the green and things um just to get to the woodlands really just
to play in the woodlands. So yeah, there wasn't a lot of necessarily a lot of greenery to be had. Mainly because the greenery that was available was really dangerous like it was high crime rate. So it wasn't particularly, you know, safe necessarily to be out. you know, when I did go out, my parents would always be worrying about where I was because we didn't necessarily have mobile phones back then. So, yeah, it was all a bit of a
So, when did do you remember when your sort of um breakthrough into nature sort of started? No, I take So, I've was I've always been interested in nature, especially animals. Um, so I guess it's a um what you would term as a special interest. Um, so yeah, I'm very I was very obsessed with animals as a kid. Uh, and
my mom actually got me a file of facts and we used to get like these portfolios come through of like different animals, where they were in the world, you know, what kind of um, population status and all that kind of thing. And for me, like really young, I think almost like freakishly young maybe for like I was like five or six, I think. And I loved just sitting and looking through all these kind of filifax leafs about all these different creatures, looking at
the different pictures. Um, so yeah, I think that is like my earliest memory really of of being interested in nature and it's just never really stopped from there. It's just spiraled out of control. Yeah. So, so that's awesome. So, so sort of imagination and and books has has been your your sort of catalyst for Yeah. Which it's funny because I don't really read a lot of books nowadays. So, yeah, it's funny to think that back then, yeah, that file effect was a real
kind of turning point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, man. I'd love to see that filax again, actually. Is it Is it somewhere, do you think, or Oh, no. No, I think we got rid of it. It was too It was quite a big one. It was like a really big um like Yeah, like multi like binder, you know, massive binder. I don't know where my mom used to get these leaves from, but they just appeared in the post, so she must have signed up to something. Yeah.
And then yeah, it's getting all these amazing. So, so where did your journey start in Cormal then? I actually moved here for a job um with the University of Exat uh about 13 years ago. I think 12 13 years ago. And so um before we go there then how what in your childhood how did you
what age did you move here and what did you do in between there and Okay. So um I left Essex when I was 18. right to study illustration in in Heraford and that was purely because when I typed in illustration university Heraford sheer was the first one to come up so I was just like that'll do so I ended up in Heraford uh I dropped out after 3 months because I realized I just didn't want to draw
like all the time um and I decided I wanted to go back to do A levels and do uh science so I did biology, geology, archaeology and environmental sciences. Um, and then from there I went to uh I I got all my A levels and then I went to Plymouth University uh to do marine biology and coastal ecology and then in my second
year of university I uh got a job at the marine biological association in Plymouth. Okay. Uh no sorry not the marine biological association, the Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Okay. And what was that doing? Um so that was um assisting with research uh specifically uh microe which is very specially a proper specialism but yeah I
really I really the thing is is it's really nerdy but uh microe when you look down a microscope at them they're all really pretty patterns and I really like that. So that would follow on from your sort of illustration wouldn't it? Yeah I guess so. Yeah. Yeah it would. Yeah. design and um design and art are still quite like I'm still quite passionate about. Um but yeah, it would follow on from that.
Yeah, it definitely I think has a bit of a link just like looking at pretty things. And that's quite a sort of um scientific um uh group of of studies there that you're doing. Yes, it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was very specific, I guess. Yeah. The only one that kind of steps out of that is archaeology. Okay. So, archaeology is people think it's uh
digging up dinosaurs and things and it's actually specifically human history. Okay. So, so archaeology was Yeah. the study of human history, not necessar not natural history at all. Actually, digging up dinosaurs comes under geology, which I also did. So, yeah. Yeah. So, what was what was the sort of highlight for you out of those subjects? Geology. Okay. I loved geology. Uh, but really the only
two things you could do with geology as a career was um digging up dinosaurs, which felt very much out of reach. I was just kind of like, I don't think I'm going to get a job doing that. And um, uh, working for oil industry or min mineral extraction. So, you would be the person that went to a beautiful place and went, "Yeah, there's loads of oil or or minerals here. Let's dig them up."
Yeah. Yeah. Let's ruin the place. Yeah. Let's ruin it. So I was like, I can't do that job. There's no way. Apparently there's a lot of money in it, but that's not something that just it couldn't I couldn't bring myself to do that. Oh, I can understand that. Yeah, absolutely. So So which direction did you go in? I went down the marine biology route. Yeah. So um and that was because I really wanted to do diving. I really wanted to be a a marine diver. Uh and I
did actually get my um HSSE qualification in diving. Mhm. Um, you know, you can go down the paddyy route, which is actually for um it's more what's the word? Recreational. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, Paddyy is for recreational diving. You have to get an HSC certificate to kind of engage in um commercial diving. What does HSC stand for? Uh it's the health and safety executive.
Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the health and safety executive give out the certificates once you've passed certain qualifications. So that's for more sort of commercial divers as well. Yeah. Yeah. So that's like welding, um undersea like underwater surveys, photography, like marine photography. Um and again it I did it and I got my certification. I did a couple of surveys but um the last survey I did uh I had
like an accident uh and I nearly died. No. Yeah. So I didn't you know go back to it. I basically never got back on that horse. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can imagine that's that's that's Yeah, diving is one of those things that if it goes wrong, it generally goes wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So, I you know, I was quite green still. I hadn't really been doing it that long. It was maybe two years I'd been doing kind of um dive work. I was
still trying to get into doing more, you know. Um it was a bit ad hoc. Um, so I'd maybe done like I don't know four or five surveys, um, doing different things like scallop surveys or, you know, um, helping out on on other dives and things like that. And then this one was like a proper survey. It was a seaggrass survey on the aisle of Londy, which is in the
Bristol Channel. Uh, and it was amazing, but um, it was uh, very it was just really difficult. It was really challenging conditions for me. I don't know if it was for everybody else who was much more experienced at diving than I was, but we got dropped in on a pinnacle. Uh it was the deepest dive that we'd done. So it was about 30 m I think. Um we got dropped in on a
pinnacle and the the current was really strong. Right. Every I didn't realize this at the time. Um but everybody else went down the side of the pinnacle to get away from the current to do the survey. whereas I stayed on top because that's where we had been dropped. So I assumed that's where we had to stay, right? So I was fighting the current all the time. Okay. Um and I got worn out. I got and you're not really when you're diving, you're
not really meant to put in a lot of physical exertion because then you start breathing too hard. We had full face masks on um because you've got radio contact so you can talk to other people. But uh unfortunately the radio wasn't working. So I I was kind of like, "Bloody hell, this is really difficult." You know, kicking basically to stay in one place.
Um, and then I started to get really dizzy and kind of getting close to blackout and I was like, "This is not good at all." And I just happened to see someone kind of going by looking perfectly fine. And I remember them kind of signaling to or trying to talk to me and me not responding cuz my radio didn't work. Um, and then them kind of going, "I can't remember what the signal is." Oh, okay. Are you okay? And I was like, no,
I'm not like I did this to indic like that's not an official signal, but I it was to just indicate no, something is wrong. So, I got I he came over, he signaled to topside that something wasn't right. So, we kind of got taken to the surface. Um or he took me to the surface. It turned out that I had a massive CO2 buildup in my mask because I had been exerting so much. Um, and unfortunately we didn't get told or I didn't get told or didn't know that you
can actually purge those masks. Oh, right. So, I could have just purged, but instead I just had this big CO2 buildup, which obviously isn't great when you're trying to breathe. So, would that be the Benz then or something like that or? No, it's not the Benz. It's just it the Benz is nitrogen buildup in your body, right? Um, so it wasn't the Benz. I didn't get anything like that. It was just I could have suffocated if if it and obviously
passing out underwater even with a mask on all kinds of things can go wrong at that point. So I was very lucky that that didn't happen. I was lucky that Chris, the other diver, just so happened to be going by at that point. Um and that was the last dive of that survey. So that was it. I didn't get to like go again to kind of try and get over that fear. And then I never got on another survey. Um, and I just kind of went, "Yeah, I don't know if I want to go back
on. Yeah, I don't blame you." Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I do some sometimes I still regret. Sometimes I'm kind of like, "Oh, maybe I should do it recreationally cuz I really enjoy it. I love going down into kind of like that area. Um, and it's such an amazing feeling when you dive. I don't know if you've ever dived." I have, actually. Yeah. Yeah. It's quite quite surreal, isn't it?
It is. I I kind of weirdly I used to think at the time it's like flying over a forest if you're in Yeah. So cuz you're cuz um underwater kelp beds and and seaggrass beds they are like forests and you know they're moving and you're just kind of hovering over the top. Different kind of animals in there. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Animals that can move in every direction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That was that was Yeah. That was I
don't know how I ended up talking about that but that that was how you know so we were we were um moving through the your sort of time coming up to um oh yeah of course plant one. So what was what was next after that then? So after um the dive surveys, I at the same time as doing the dive surveys, my my other job was working in research. Yeah. At uh Plymouth Marine Laboratory.
Mhm. Um which is in Plymouth. Uh and they had done I worked there for I think three years maybe two years and then I um they did a collaboration with XA University. Mhm. Uh but Penring campus. Okay. Not the extra campus. So that required me to go to Penin campus I think once a week. Um so then of course you kind of get to know people down in Penin. Um
research jobs are never permanent. They're always temporary on either a six month, a year, two year, fiveyear contracts. So I was always being put on from one contract to the next working on different but similar research projects. Um so then I was always kind of looking for the next job you know at the same time because you always have to keep that kind of open. So um I ended up working at X University. Um
so what was what were those what was the sort of um you said they were similar but not the same. What was the sort of over? So I went from working with uh marine microalgae to freshwater al micro algae okay to uh what's called acidophilic microali and acidophilic is just they love acid they love acidic environments
um which is actually in cornal there's a lot of because we've got a lot of uh mine waste which causes water courses to go acidic so um there was that and then I ended up working in bacteria Okay, these are all fascinating subjects. Yeah, so it goes from so basically it goes from microalgae to bacteria and then I ended up kind of specializing specifically in um growing all these organisms in what's called a bioreactor.
Okay. Uh so I just kind of I just became really good at looking after bioreactors of various kinds from a few hundred like liters down to like a 10 liter, 5 liter pot. So that was what I did pretty much. Yeah, that was the thing that like joined it all together, you know, in every project. So what So what next? What next? Okay, so then I ended up um
working uh on methanogens, which is methane producing bacteria. It was very uh it wasn't what at all what I wanted to do. Research felt like the wrong place because I was stuck. I didn't want to do a PhD and there's nowhere to really go in a university if you're not going to be a lecturer. Uh so I I all this time I had been a research assistant and I' you know I'd reached a ceiling there was nowhere more for me to
go. I'd been moving from place to place in within it but not upwards. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just kind of a bit stuck. Um and then I thought well you know I need to do something different. And I didn't really know what that was. Um but I ended up kind of thinking about uh the fact that the reservoir outside of Falmouth, Algo reservoir and college reservoir
they provide the water fresh water for Falmouth. Yeah. They are very toxic because they are full of micro algae which any creature that's not aquatic, humans, dogs, any wildlife that's not aquatic uh would find poisonous. They get really sick from drinking it. Okay. and Southwest Water have to spend a lot of money, I don't know how much, cleaning that and
that is caused by too much nutrients from the runoff of the farms on the area. Yeah. Not necessarily farms, it can actually also be uh houses as well. Um and so I was like, this is insane. This is so crazy that for some of the you can go there and have a look and you can see all this algae. It's a really thick map, the same color as some of these plants, you know. It's not good. And it smells pretty bad, you know. So,
it's it's quite obvious. And this is just like stagnant water, is it? It's not stagnant. It's It looks like stagnant water, but it's it's just it's it's the algae. When it dies, it rots. So, that takes up oxygen that kills fish. That's why Argo reservoir is full of um bubbles. Okay. So they have to pay to pump water into the reservoir to pump
air sorry into the reservoir to keep it moving to keep it moving so that the fish can live in there you know. Is that totally a sealed off area then? Is it there's no feed from it? There is a feed but it's it's um when like we have events like droughts obviously the water gets like there's no water feeding in it gets smaller and it gets worse. The issue gets worse. So
there's all kinds of, you know, problems going on there. So I was like, we need to change the land use around the reservoir because if we can change the way the land is used, that means that the reservoir will be in a better condition. Southwest Water won't have to spend God knows how much money making it clean and and drinkable. Um, so I ended up going to a Forest for Cornwall event. Uh, Forest for Cornwall
are a council um funded organization. Coral Council funded organization which um helps land owners across the county um get trees in to whether that is like um it's usually mapping. So they'll do like a design and things like that and tell you what trees to plant. So I went to one of their events to like learn more to see how I could somehow help.
And that was where I met Carl who is my now my business partner. Um and he had already come up with plant one with a group of friends. Uh-huh. Um, and I met them and I and they were all wearing matching t-shirts. And I remember being like, "These guys are great. They they know what they're doing. That's so cool that they've got like a team, you know, rather than me just kind of being on my own trying to
figure out what's going on." And I was like, "Oh, that's so cool." So, we kind of had a little chat and that was the end of it it really. Um, and then I think like a few months later during that time because I I think I'd been interviewed by them for their Instagram or something. Um, so I was like, "Oh, you know, Carl and I swapped numbers because I was interested in him maybe being a trustee in something I was trying to do." So, um, then like, yeah, I think a few
months later, he was like, "Look," he rang me up at like 8:00 at night and was like, "Hey, look, my friends have had a baby together, right?" Yeah. They're not like, "They don't really have time to be involved in this anymore. It's just me again." Okay. Do you want to like come on board and like help me out with this? And I was like, "Oh, yeah. All right, then. Why not, you know? Excellent. So, yeah, that's how we ended up like
like getting on with that basically. Um, so tell me what what is Plant One Cornal? Okay, so Plant One, uh, we're changing the name to just Plant One. Um, so Plant One is a woodland creation company. Our thing was always like there's so many like issues in the world in terms of CO2, biodiversity crisis, people not
being able to access nature that we really like what can we do like just me and Carl, you know, and it was like we can plant bloody trees, right? Like, you know, he's an arborist. That's what he's been, you know, doing for years, like over 10 years, I think. So, I was like, you know, let's that's easy. We can do that. Um, and to us at the time, we were just like, let's just just get them in. Let's
just get him in the ground. Let's just get it done, you know. Uh, obviously now it's a little bit more uh there's a lot more to it than that, but um yeah, we the whole idea was we just want to have an impact. We just want to be able to do something positive. Um, so now, uh, we're going for a charity status. We were a CIC. Um we work with land owners, we work with the community
and we work with businesses all over the county uh and actually beyond now. Um to remove barriers for land owners for get for woodland creation. For a land owner that could be like a whole myriad of things. It could be I don't even know what trees to plant. Oh, we can help you answer that. You know, oh I uh I don't know where to plant my trees. We can help you answer that. I don't know um like if I should plant trees, you know.
Um loads of land owners kind of get in touch and are like, "Oh, can you come and have a look? I've got this crappy scrap of land and I'm thinking to just put trees on it." And then I go there and I go, "Oh, no, no, no. This is a great grassland and you don't even realize, you know, you've got like species here that are actually quite rare." So, um yeah, there's kind of all those services and then of course we do the actual planting. We then like take care of the trees once we've put them
in. Um, and then we also uh Yeah, that's you you you have you have certain um rules and certain um ways of people getting further up the list and Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, tell me about that. If a land owner um gets in touch um and they're kind of like, oh, you know, I'd like to get some trees, the first question is always,
okay, great. uh is there public access? Yeah. You know, um and sometimes they say yes, sometimes they say no. If they say yes, that's immediate win because we're like, "Oh, fantastic." Because the thing that we really want to do is make sure that people, especially in Cornwall, have access to trees. Cornwall has uh the least access uh sorry, Cornwall has the least amount of tree cover uh on average
um compared to all of Europe. Um it's really bad. We've got obviously we've got great ocean like access and everything uh with the southwest coast path but such bad access to wooded areas. I mean I think if you were to ask most Cornish people about woodland areas they kind of be like Tahidi Idlas. That's about it. What other areas in our area orbits isn't there? Yeah there's loads of small sections and
so much of it is in private ownership as well that you just can't get to it. You know you're not really allowed in there. Mhm. So, um yeah, that's kind of a tough, you know, how do you get the community involved? So, they are invited to come along to uh planting days and also um we're trying to find a better name for this, but maintenance days. Okay. So, um I like to call them summer days
cuz planting always takes place in the winter. Everybody loves planting because it's the sexy bit, but it's always done in the wind and the rain and the snow, you know, the cold. Um, the summer days are just come along to a sunny day, you know, and do some weeding. It's it's it's not as sexy, but it's a damn sight easier and just as important. Um, so
yeah, they're the two like volunteer days that we do to get the community involved. And a land owner obviously has to accept that as well. They have to be allowed to have people. So, do you would you do a woodland if if people weren't given access? if it was so if there's no access um if it's a really good because our main aim is to create woodlands for biodiversity purposes that is our top priority.
Okay. So it's biodiversity public access CO2 sequestration is a side uh benefit if you like. Um but that's our main thing. If a project is really good and it's going to really make a positive impact on biodiversity, we will go ahead with it if there's no public access as long as the land owner also lets us bring on volunteers like to, you
know, at least access it for a day or two, you know. Um, and then they get to see us an area that usually you wouldn't get to see. Yeah. Um, so that's how we how we deal with that. But public access is like see like I say one of our top priorities. And you'll push people up the list if if they're ticking more boxes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. And so um you you've said before that there's there's
a a problem with um with accessing and finding land. There's land all over the place. So what's the what's the actual challenge there then? Well, obviously we the land owners have to be, you know, on board and many land owners aren't. Um, so primarily we work with I would say campsites and large estates. One facet of the public that
own a lot of land that don't really like trees unfortunately are farmers. Okay. So, um, we have actually we're just in conversations with our first farmer um, a beef dairy farmer who I'm not going to go more than that because we've not gone further with the conversation, but um, yeah, they're a beef and dairy farmer who are looking to put more trees into their fields um, for
shelter. Their cows don't have any shelter from the sun, so they're they're kind of like, "Look, my cows are like struggling in the heat. Um, we would really like to give them some shade. can we have trees for that purpose? And we're we're like, "Yeah, of course you can." Like that's a really like cows are literally a forest animal. They they're evolved to be in woodlands. Um so eating leaves as part of their,
you know, diet is really important. It's really good for them. It's really good for their tummies. So just so apart from cows, um or including cows, I I guess uh does farming and woodland habitat go hand in hand? exist. Yeah, it can exist together. Um, so there's a real I completely understand why farming is a really really tough job. They are trying to do
everything for for nothing and for everybody at the same time. They're trying to keep everybody h happy for nothing. So, um, they are less likely to take risks, which I completely get. Um, but we do need more trees in the landscape and that can be done especially if you have livestock because for chickens which are also jungle fowl that is literally their, you know, name, you know, for chickens, for pigs, which also
love to root around in woodland. Yeah. Yeah. And cows, all of those creatures like benefit from woodlands. It'll improve their health. Um it's better, you know, uh for the woodlands as well to have these kind of creatures roaming around in them for different reasons. Um so if you have livestock, it's actually like a really good idea and not very difficult to do really. When you first put the trees in, you got
to keep them out because you got to let the trees grow up to be a bit bigger, you know, but once they're grown, it's actually like quite easy then to put your livestock or your pigs or or whatever in there. Um with crops, it's more difficult. But there are still benefits. You have to give up a little bit of your land um to plant the trees in a specific way so that then you can get your let's say you want you need to um spray or you need to uh I don't know
um I don't know do any anything with big machinery you need to have the space of course yeah to do that and obvious so you can't plant trees willy-nilly wherever you want you know because you need to plan it a little bit more. Um but there are benefits and that mainly comes from um uh stopping exposure. Mhm. So you can put in trees which will help actually to to you know
shelter. Yeah. To shelter whether that be from actually too much sun or too much wind. So there's there's kind of benefits from that side. Also there's this whole thing where you can um plant crops alongside trees which they actually benefit each other in different ways but that's whole other science that I personally don't have any knowledge of. So that's so that would be a sort of arable side woodland as well. Yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Um yeah. So for the only example of that that I can think of which is an example of a concept but not necessarily trees is three sisters concept which is I think it's beans, tomatoes, and sweet corn. You can grow all of those right next to each other and they all benefit each other in different ways. Okay. There are things um that you can do with trees like that. Um, but I personally
don't know of any and that's just because we've not worked in on on any arable projects yet. So So I'm I'm I'm I'm super interested in the um the concept of different species, different trees for different places. Oh yeah. And planting the right trees in the right places. So and this is a topic that could go on about forever. This is one of your I I I read that this
is one of your um sort of sweet spots that go on. I'll give give you a moment to uh so it's really diff it's a really difficult and but also really interesting topics in my opinion. So, um, trees, there are certain species of trees that we need in the UK, but unfortunately because of climate, uh, we're going to
need to also somehow plant, try and envision what might happen in the future and plant, uh, trees that are going to survive climate change, which obviously we're all hoping touchwood, you know, we don't go above like the emissions levels and we don't go above on the temperatures and But if we don't if we don't go above those levels and things, we're going to plant like 80% 90% native species and
maybe 10% non-natives. When I say non-natives, I'm speaking in Europe. I'm not talking about like bringing over something from like New Zealand or whatever. Okay. Um although we have planted a couple of Japanese species of trees. Um, but the worst thing that can go wrong then is we've just planted 10 or 20% of a woodland with a non-native species and everything else is fine. Yeah. Yeah. If things do go a bit sideways and we do have those temperature, you know, the
temperature rise that we think and the weather and all all the bad things that we know of, then potentially we've planted 80 to 90% trees that might not be able to live here, right? Yeah. So we need to somehow so again our we lose more of our Yeah. Exactly. So So is it better to plant all native species which there are people out there that like no we need to
be you know we need to have just natives you shouldn't plant anything non-native even to the point of saying no you need to plant native species that you will find in Cornwall and not in Essex you know only in this area. Yeah and only in this area. Yeah. So, there are people that are doing that and I'm really glad they're doing that, but I'm also really glad that we're doing what we're doing because really I think you need to have a mixture of approaches because it's such a wide insane topic.
And this is your uh genetic diversity. Uh oh yeah, my des Yeah. chat. Yeah. So that's the other thing as well is that as well as planting the right species, you also need to be thinking all the time about how you can help all those tree species um adapt and be more resilient as a comm
you know. So um we need to try and bring in as many kind of genetic variations of those species. And what that means is it just means like if you think about dogs, they're all different breeds if you like. We need to kind of bring in all those different lineages that you can get with oak trees for example or plant species that are really adaptable. So there are some tree species like cherry. There's a something called wild cherry.
It's my favorite one. um that it grows like all the way over in like the east of Russia all the way through like Kazakhstan and like I don't know like Syria like through like Greece and everything and here too. Okay. And that it's the same species. It's the which is kind of bonkers for a tree because that's a lot of different like uh habitats that it has to cope with.
A lot of weather patterns. Yeah. A lot of weather patterns. So that means that actually it's really adaptable as a tree. Like it's actually, you know, capable of coping with quite a lot. Yeah, of course. So let's plant more of those as well because maybe they'll be able to cope with what might happen in the future, which is we've got some ideas as the human race. We we're always got ideas, but you know, where do you I mean, where do you even look to for research for this stuff?
Because it's it's sort of it's not been written, has it? Yeah. Yeah. So there is there. So um I mean the simple thing about the cherry tree is if you just go on Wikipedia and look at its distribution around the world, you can see where it is. Okay. And so then from that I've deduced that actually maybe it's really adaptable and it probably is really adaptable if it can survive in those places. There's
lots of theories about um you know genetic diversity that I've kind of gone okay this is probably applicable to these different species you know but there is there's loads of scientific literature it's just not what I'm saying is is the scientific literature on the earth warming oh sorry you know um there it's it's unprecedented
so you're sort of moving into a potentially moving into a realm that hasn't been written yet. So, so like you say, do you just ignore it and carry on just doing native as it is or do you mitigate it and preempt it? Yeah. So, um I went so the forestry commission has done work on on like climate change and they have come up with a few models to show where they think we're going to be. I can't
remember the time frame now. I think it's that generic in 50 years time, you know. Um and they did a um they showed a model that was in 50 years time uh the Cornwall most likely will have a um climate that's like northern Spain or southern France. Okay. Yeah. But most likely so so there's that. But then there is
also a massive area either side of that which could also happen but there are just less chance. So they're saying you need to be planting species that are from those regions because those trees are going to be able to cope with that. Yeah, for sure. But they're not doing that in their planting plans. They've got so so it's very strange. you know there there is all this science that says all this
stuff but then people takes people a long time to adopt scientific methods. It's you know and it's um from um my sort of very very uh very limited uh knowledge on it all um it's it's hard to get people to change isn't it? Mhm. Um it's especially large organizations. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
It takes a lot to you know it's a bit like thinking about like a really big cruise liner. It takes them a long time to change directions. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thinking about the NEP um uh estate. Oh, yeah. You know, NEP where they've um sort they call it rewing, don't they? And um uh the the sort of kick back that they've had when they've tried new projects or looked forward and and you
know, the big organizations like DERA and people like that have said, "No, you can't do that. You can't do that." And that's been I can imagine extremely frustrating for them. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what sort of um you must be working with some um some sort of agencies, you know, like the Woodland uh Trust and we've Yeah, we work quite a lot with Woodland Trust now. Um it's kind of we
we've actually got a joint campaign that we're launching with them um in kind of September time which is looking at some research that they funded with the University of Extera. Nothing to do with me that just so happened to happen. Um so yeah, we've got loads of projects kind of going on with the Wooden Trust. Um and we've worked a little bit with the Cornal Wildlife Trust and hopefully we'll be doing more of that next year as well. Um so yeah, lots of like local
NOS's and things that we're kind of yeah working and are in contact with. Um also the um oh Thousand-Year Trust which is on Bobmin as well. Um so yeah, lots of yeah environmental organizations that we we're collaborating with. That must be an interesting table conversation when you all get together. Oh yeah. Yeah, I think so. Every everybody has slightly different ways of
doing things. So yeah, some things you agree on and then some things you don't agree on. Yeah, which is fine, isn't it? You know, and what I'm finding more and more is that a lot of people are trying to get to the same place but doing things in different ways. Absolutely. And actually that's okay. And that's okay. That is absolutely okay. Yeah. Because like I say, like it was what we were saying earlier about there are people out there that like we have to plant natives and then there are
people out there like the head gardener of Q is like we shouldn't be planting any native trees, you know. And really the fact that we're doing it all means that we'll probably be okay. Yeah. Because some things will work. Yeah. And some things won't. Yeah. And some things won't. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nature has a way of u sorting itself out, doesn't it? It certainly does. And and I mean if you
look so at the moment we're suffering from ash dieback, right? Uh which um so ash is a tree. Uh it just so happens to be one of my favorites. Um it is being killed by a fungus which has been brought over from China. Um so we're losing I don't I can't tell you the facts and figures, but we're losing a hell of a lot of um ash trees.
Um, in fact, everybody was kind of worried that we would lose them all, but actually I think it might have been Q I think Q Gardens did a um a uh some research and they've actually found that the ashtree is much more resilient than we thought it was going to be, which is great. So, it's nice to have some good news. Um, so yeah, nature is is definitely a bit more resilient than we sometimes
give it credit for. Um, talking about credit, that's a nice segue through to carbon credits and um and offsetting. U I sort of sometimes struggle with the concept of um of net zero. Yeah. Um you know, we can do this really badly if we do that really well sort of thing. And um and I I sort of sometimes struggle with that concept.
But what what's sort of where do you go with do you offsetting? do offsetting or we do do we do offsetting? I hate this question. So, our trees they absorb carbon like that is literally what they do. There's nothing we can do to stop that. We are a small uh not for profofit. So, as you can imagine, money is tight. So, we did we it would be really silly of us to ignore it
as a potential income stream. However, we also don't want people to just continue as normal. Yeah. So, um what we do is we work with um Carbon Sense, which is a Cornwall based um uh it's like a they're not I'm going to call them carbon calculators, but what they do is they'll help you work out your emissions. If you're a business
or even as an individual, you could probably pay them to do it and they would help you do that. And that's the first thing you have to do is you have if you're going to start like trying to mitigate or you're trying to sort out your CO2 emissions and and get some trees to suck it all up, you have to know how much you're generating, right? So, um they will help you do that. And that is a really tough job. It sounds a
lot hard like it's a lot harder than it might sound. Uh then the next thing to do is you have to reduce your emissions by changing your behavior. That could be really simple things like, oh, I'm gonna go on an electric tariff, you know. Um, sorry, not a sustainable tariff, not electric renewable renewable tariff. Um, so yeah, there's that.
Um, then there will but there will be because of the way the world works, there will be things that you cannot like get rid of. You'll always have some emissions. Um, so that's the bit that then you should um buy credits and that's when it gets really difficult. So you're not So So if someone came to you and said, um, we're doing everything
really badly and we want you to um to hide it for us by doing that. Uh, you're going to say to them, well, first of all, go speak to Andrew. Let's get your calculator going and then and then we'll talk about how you can start minimizing your stuff and then we'll talk about and then we'll talk about it. Yeah, I like that. Okay. Yeah. So, that's how that's how we do it. We are but the important thing to
say is we are not we don't have any units. So, we are not verified or validated. You have to have a third party come along and say yes plant one are definitely doing all this tree planting. Because we don't own any land and because we work with land owners all around Cornmal, we can't validate any of our sites.
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So, and we tell everybody this. We we say like we're very upfront about it. We cannot like sell you a carbon an official carbon credit because we cannot like have this third party person come around because we don't own the site. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it would be really it would also be really difficult in some cases with the land owners to get these really long-term agreements for
the carbon units. Some sites we do have that, but we still can't have them validated because it's not our site. Um, so the thing that we say to people is that but we can use forestry commission uh data to work out how much CO2 our trees are going to absorb. Mhm. And then we can tell you like we we can you know say okay if you give us x
amount we will absorb the amount this amount for the next 50 years I think the time scale is um so we can do that but then they cannot say that they're carbon zero net zero because they're not validated credits. You can only say that you're net zero if you have valid if you have bought validated units. We can't do that. And for some businesses that that
that's not good enough, which is fine. They they can go they have to go somewhere else and buy their units. And some businesses are like, "Okay, that's fine. We just won't say we're carbon zero. We'd rather do the thing locally with you." Yeah. Than buy some units that have been validated, I don't know, it doesn't even, you know, in Thailand or Well, some of those are questionable as well. Yeah. So, uh, yeah. And I actually know the
thing is as well I don't want to put even more cynicism into the CO2 market because I do think there are merits there but the thing is I do know that there are organizations out there that if you just pay them enough money they will come and validate your units you know so it is a real it's such a wild west it's such a wild west and it's a big money making huge money so we don't you know
it's a it's just a really difficult kind of topic to Um, which usually I hate talking about. Yeah. Yeah. No, I understand that. Yeah. But it's but I think it's important to be frank and upfront about the the pros and cons of CO2 like units. Um because there are some there are people out there that are businesses out there that are doing are trying the best they can. They're doing the best they can and then there are business out
there taking advantage of it as well. So it's a real mixed bag. So do you know how many trees you planted? Yes. Well, kind of. Go on. Yeah. So, we're about We've done about 42,000 trees. Wow. Uh in So, this will be our sixth year and it has doubled every year. Brilliant. So, I think in our first year we did about 2,500.
Then the next year we did 5,000 then we did 10,000. Uh so, what's that? Two. Yeah. 2 5 10. Yeah. Then we did 20. Uh, and this year, our fifth season, we're looking to plant about 42,000 trees. Brilliant. And what sort of Do you know the sort of uh space that that's taken up? Oh, man. I Oh, I could look it up, but I
can't remember off the top of my head. It's like it's it's if I can't do the maths off the top of my head, but it's roughly uh 1,200 trees per hectare. So, if anyone listening has a calculator, just Yeah. divide 40,000 by 1,200 and that will give you approximately the hectarage that that would cover. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Which must be quite a lot.
That's fantastic. And um and do you get help from the um what's is it the forestry the forestry commission? The the Cornwall. Oh, forest for Cornwall. forest for so forest for Cornwall have given us or or not given us sorry they've um uh signposted land owners to us previously so uh land owners will go to them and say hey I've got this like field that I
would like to do some planting on they would put together the plan and they would provide the fun funding and then they would say go to plant one or you can talk to plant one and speak to them about the delivery of doing the planting and they would they would pay for the the trees as Yeah, they would. So, we but then we uh what we do is we would actually because that can still be a bit of an issue for the land owners. Um because what happens is is
they get the money after they have done after they've paid us to do the work. So, what we say is we wave all fees until they get the money, right? Then Oh, okay. That's Yeah, that's good. So, we have that pot of money to do that. Yeah. Um so, that's some sites. Yeah. with forest for more. So, so also I just want to step back to the the um carbon thing,
but um want to go further than that as well is is when you plant a tree, it's not sequestering um carbon until it's bigger, a certain age, is it? What's So, what happens is it's called a bell curve. So, it's a bit like a hump like that, right? So what happens is when you first
plant the tree I think in the first 20 years uh maybe 30 depending on the species it absorbs so it absorbs a ton of carbon because what happens is it's growing and the more the faster a tree grows the more mass it puts on. So it's it's drawing like like me I'm a young man and I like I like my food you know drawing in all that food. Yeah. Exactly. It's exactly like that.
So they're they're they're drawing in as much CO2 as they can. When they get to full size, they're not drawing in Oh, okay. That makes sense. as much CO2 anymore. And actually, they're because trees do two things. They photosynthesize, which takes in CO2, but they also respire. They breathe like we do. Breathe oxygen. No, brea breathe out CO2. Ah, okay. So, they produce CO2 as well. Right.
So when they get to being a big old tree, they actually produce the same amount of CO2 as they take up. So so it become that it ends up that they're kind of more, you know, they're not absorbing as much at all towards the end of their life or when they mature. So it's during that growth period that they're really and then you say it's a bell curve. So it goes back down again. Yeah. And that's okay. Yeah. That's so when they're little like
it ramps up when they're growing big and then it goes back down again because they've reached maturity and they don't need to. This is this denotes a mature tree by the way just so you know this is what this is. Hang on. Let me see. Oh yeah, I get that. Yeah, you feel like a tree, right? Yeah. So yeah, so that that's Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, so that's that's and then technically what's meant to happen is that um you know I don't know like a beaver might come along and like nibble
a bit off and then it would have to grow another one. So then it would absorb more you know there's there's all that kind of thing that should happen. So so going back to um you said that in the first 20 years of the bell curve and the the bell curve is going to sort of start sort of fairly slowly and then shoot up. What's the what's the when does it start? I think that's like 5 years. Okay. Yeah. So, actually that's when we on some of our sites we have contracts for
about 5 years. Um and then hopefully we'll be able to work on them more but you know that's when that contract comes to an end and some of them we might not go back to that site. Um but yeah that's when that that's when it's really going to ramp up is after about that 5year period. Cool. Cool. So um you've already said mentioned a few challenges but what's what what other challenges are you facing in what respect? Um I guess anything
what's our challenges? What are your main challenges? Uh as plant one as plant one our challenge at the moment is always funding. We we started with zero funding. We just started and it's just kind of spiraled out of control. You know we didn't have any initial funding from any sources. Um so we yeah we're always looking to just make ourselves more sustainable. I think it's the same right with every like small
charity or non not forp profofit. Um yeah, our income is mostly from businesses who are just looking to do a good thing. They want like to improve uh Cornwall's environment. Um we're also now looking for um public donations. So if individuals are wanting to give us cash, we would love to receive a donation from you as well. Um so yeah, they're the that's like the two
things that we're trying to do. We also now offer some services. um like chargeable services. Um so we can do woodland maintenance and all that kind of thing as well. And that's all under the same umbrella. All under the same umbrella. All under plant one. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Um so that's our that that's all that's always our main challenge, I think, is is funding um and trying to convince people that we have enough land to plant trees.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that that's I think that would be excellent. So Ry, what gives you hope? Oh, I remember you asking this question before. So, this this is a really tough one for me because I think I think I think about it too much, but
there are a number of things that give me hope. Uh, but I've got a really weird one that I've kind of wanted to talk about, I guess. So, um I went to a uh uh industrial event where there was lots of different businesses kind of there. Um and obviously a lot of the problems I feel like we're facing in the world at the moment, there's so many crazy egocentric people out there.
Yeah. you know, uh, Trump obviously, um, and also Elon Musk, uh, Putin, and they're all all of this is just it's taking so much focus, I think, off of what's really important, you know, and it's really sad, and that makes me really kind of everybody's just kind of in it for themselves, you know. Um and when I was at this event, I randomly
bumped into um a guy who was sitting at a table uh called uh his name was VJ Ranga Rajan and he just so happened to be the head of the electoral commission and he was and I I didn't know that at the time like he was just like hey I'm VJ and we had like a very short conversation and he was really nice and then like I was busy so I went off and did something else
and then I was like who was who was he? So I'd like Wikipedia like I googled him and I was like my god this is like he was a um an ambassador to Brazil for for the UK um head of the electoral commission which is one of the most amazing democratic organizations in the world. They actually bring democracy to countries rather than like America kind of like bringing democracy. Um and I was like this dude is really
powerful. He's really successful. He's very he's clearly very rich from the suit he was wearing and he had not he was the most humble lovely person that I had met and I was like my god they do exist. I I was like but they there are actually people out there that are doing good that aren't don't seem to be in it for themselves and that really gave me hope. It was very strange. I know it's a very
random thing to say but it was just really nice to and refreshing. It was so refreshing, you know. Um, so yeah, that that's what gives me hope is there are actually people out there that are doing good things and they're not in it for the wrong reasons. They genuinely do seem to be in it. There's a lot of people out there doing that. I think a lot of people Yeah. It's uh it's the the uh the rule rather than the exception, I think. Yeah. And and
yeah, maybe I'm a bit cynical, so I don't see Yeah, it's understandable in today's society. It's understandable to be cynical, I think. Um, but yeah, that really gave me that really kind of I was like, "Oh, man. He was cool." We like cool people. Yeah. Yeah, he was he was great. So, now let's move on to your evidence. So, what we're going to do is we've got Alex over there with the bell. And um he's going to uh give you one
minute to talk about each of your um evidence that you've brought to the table. Okay. And your first one is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter W. Wallaban. Yes. Wan. Yeah. Wallaban. So, um, when I first started, uh, like, you know, getting into the tree game, if you like, obviously come from marine biology background, I had to learn a lot about how trees survive and how they live. And
Mark's book, I think, is instrumental in kind of telling you about that. There is so much information in there. um that you wouldn't even consider. So things like um there's the they're all they're theories, you know, it's based on research, but it's it it needs more, you know, a little bit more. But there's some really lovely romantic stuff in there about like how mother trees will
nurture and preferentially give nutrients to their their own young like a like like a family, you know. Um so there's that kind of thing in there that you wouldn't even think was possible, you know, but that's what they're doing. Amazing. Um, and like so he was saying that um that he he owns a woodland and he manages his woodland with horses. No more heavy machinery cuz the vibrations
that go through the soil can really upset the trees. Okay. You know, so it's just really crazy things like that, you know, that you wouldn't really consider. Oh, there you go. That one then. Good timing. Good timing. Um, so the second one on your um that sounds well worth a read. Yeah. Yeah. It's a Yeah. So, the second one is a BBC article called uh five mindblowing facts about
what the UK looks like. Yeah. So, we get this all the time and it is um you know there's not enough land. There's not enough land to build on. There's not enough land for you to have woodlands and farm, you know, and all this stuff. And if you read those facts, I think it's like from last year, um it is literally tells you the truth. It's not just like things that you hear on the street. Uh it's it's literally
facts and figures about how much of our landscape is built on, which is like less than 1% I think it says on the article, you know. Um that actually we have the same amount of golf courses as we do housing estate. That's insane, isn't it? Like so it's like you know there are things there there is plenty of land out there. We just have to manage it a lot better. That that's yeah that that's the really important thing to think.
Amazing. Oh, absolutely. Was that an early one? Oh, he's good though. He's good. He's He's super keen on it. If you're if you're if you're after a minute, that's it. He's But he's spelling it. So, um the next one is uh Fauna and Flora International, which is a science lab global conservation work website. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, this is just pretty much I I just want people to know
about it because I think it's really important. the work they do internationally is like it's not like a it's scienceled and I think that's really important. I'm really obviously very passionate about science. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, um and they do some really amazing work in the what was the fertile cresant which is kind of Syria, Iraq, all that kind of area. And they're actually protecting putting loads of effort into
protecting our fruit and nut trees which is where those trees are from. everything that we take for walnuts, apples, like they all came pears, they all came from that area. Um, so they're doing like vital work to keep and all those species, all those trees that live in that area now are endangered because of climate change and things. So they're doing as much as they can to preserve the seeds and the nuts from those trees
to protect them. To protect them. Yeah. Amazing. I will have to have a look at that one. And then I had a look at this one. Um, this next one. Uh, I can't remember what it is. Oh yeah. So it's restore.eco. Oh yes. So that one's an open ecological restoration data platform. Yes. Yeah. So um we're using we use this to keep track of our sites. So anybody can go on there. Uh you can type in
plant one search under organization and then you can find everywhere that we have put planting. Um, and the other reason that it's really good is it actually uses satellites and things to um, track the changing use of the land. So over the years we would literally be able to see like the site change from a field or whatever to a woodland. Um, so that's a really good website and it
because it's doing that across multiple organizations all over the world. So any organization can sign up. If you're the Cornal Wildlife Trust or the Woodland Trust, you can sign up to that and you can map it on there and then the satellite data will all be collected for you and you can use that however you like. Amazing. So it's a great website and that's all open source as well which is fantastic. It should be it's it's such a pain when
you go looking for research now and it's and it's behind closed door play pay play pay walls and whatnot. Yeah, absolutely. So now we're going to move on. Thank you for that. We're now we're going to move on to uh the top tips. Oh yes. Yeah. And these are your achievable top tips that you've brought to the table. Um the first top tip we're going to go for a minute again. Oh okay. Okay. Um and the first top tip is do
something that's achievable for you. Yes. Absolutely. So there's no point in being like a person that loves burgers and being like I'm going to be a vegetarian because you're just setting yourself up to fail. like pick something that actually suits you. Like if you are I don't know if you're really good at cycling just try and cycle more rather than take the car. If or if you really
like trains, get the train more and take a car. You know, everybody will have something that they're good at and that's what they should or something that's achievable for them and that's what they should focus on. I'm not saying you can't like try something a bit hard. You can push your boundaries, but if you're just starting out, just start with stuff that's easy. You know, you don't need to go straight into I'm going to be a hardcore vegan. You know,
it's you don't have to do the difficult things. In case you can't tell, I'm find being a vegan difficult, but yeah, there's Yeah, there's Yeah, you don't need to make it difficult for you. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that concept with um sort of the likes of becoming a vegan is is to to maybe stop eating meat just one day a week and Yeah. And then in six months time try two days a week and in six months try
you know something like that rather than right tomorrow I'm going to I'm going fullblown. So your number two is uh perfection is the enemy of progress. You don't need to be perfect. I love this one. Yeah. So it's this is exactly it's kind of the same theory really. It's again you don't need to be perfect. So like if if we just stick with the vegan theme or vegetarian theme, if you are trying to
be vegetarian or vegan and you have a slip up and you go, "God, I had bacon." Don't then just fall, you don't have to then just fall off the bandwagon and be like, "Well, I've not done it. I failed. Yeah, I've failed. That's it. Why am I even bothering?" No, you know, you don't have to do that at all. You can then the next day you could have bacon again if you want, but the next day try again. You know, just get back on the horse.
Keep trying. one day it might work. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Um this one's interesting. Be angry not sad. Yeah. Yeah. So, um I think it's really easy. It It's very easy, first of all, for me to say make sure you're angry and not sad. But, um it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to be hopeless. Um and it's easy to get depressed really
about the state of things. If you have any kind of ecological background, that's really difficult to cope with the facts that are going on at the moment. Sadness saps energy, makes you not want to do anything and it makes you kind of want to go. If you're angry, if you get angry about it instead, if you try and feel that, I think that gives you fire. So then it gives you energy to do something. So I think it's quite important. I'm not
I'm not saying don't be sad. Don't feel bad about being sad, Jesus. But like if you can just just try and find that little kernel of anger and and give it a little bit more feeding to fan that flame, you know. Um I think that's quite important because then you get proactive, not overwhelmed. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. We talked um
we talked with uh with Jake Cley about eco anxiety. Oh yeah. And um yeah, that was a fascinating show. And uh he would he was similar, you know, turn it into action. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Absolutely. So um last uh no, not the last one. If nothing else, collect and use rain water. Yes. Yeah. So um fresh water is going to
be a is a really big issue and it's going to become more of a big issue in the future. Uh we use our rain water really poorly across the nation. Um, so I think in Britain we always like it rains all the time. We don't have to worry about it. But actually if you can collect and use rain water and I I try and tell people if you can if you can hook it up to your toilet cuz at the moment you're flushing your toilet every time with perfectly
drinkable water and that is such a waste. You know, if you can collect enough rain water to keep your toilets running like if you can do that, go for it. Like I think that's I think that's really important cuz fresh you can live what is it? It's like 3 minutes without air and then 3 weeks without food like water is really important. So I think everybody should do a better
job of collecting rain water for use in whatever way you can find. Uh yeah and you're not the first person to come on the show and say that. And that's um I think um what I didn't realize is that uh is that all of that water that's coming off your roof is going straight into the sewage system and we're we're wondering why our seu sewage systems are overflowing.
Yeah, exactly. But but it seems that um new builds aren't embracing that and and it's it's really strange, isn't it, that they're not it's going back to this idea that people don't take science as much as they as fast as they should, you know, it just doesn't happen quick enough, unfortunately. Absolutely. So your um the last one that you've sort of touched upon already is eat less meat.
Yes. So yeah, the two things that if you if you have to do something, I would always say try and use use less fresh water and try and eat less meat. Uh specifically, if you can cut it out, try and cut out beef um and pork, I would say, just because I think pigs are really smart and it's really mean to eat them, but um not that chickens have less value, but um they're less environmental
impact when it comes to eating meat. M um but if you can just cut down like you said even one day and then go on to two you know and maybe if you can cut it down to just eating like one meal like a week with meat fantastic but you don't have to be perfect. Yeah. So um yeah again there's loads of problems with eating fish as well. Um but you know I know it's really hard.
We've grown up being surrounded by abundance. So it's difficult to cut out abundance when you have it. Um, but if you can, yeah, if you can try and eat less meat, the environmental impacts are so positive. Um, and it's so well researched, you know, it would seem a shame to Yeah, ignore that. Yeah, definitely. Well, uh, thank you, Alex, for um, doing the bell there. Oh, eager be
and thanks for that, Ray. That's uh so um we've sort of again we've touched on it before but uh tell us how we can support uh plant one and um give us your contact details. Okay. So, um we're going through a bit of a revamp on the website and have been for about five years, but um so the best way to get in contact with us is to find us on Instagram, which I believe is like
plant1c uh plant1c. Um you can give us a message there. You can send us an email at um hello plant1.com. Uh and it's spelled one, not just putting the number one. Um so you can contact us there. Uh we're always looking for land owners to collaborate with. If you're a business and you would like to give us more funding, we would bloody love that too. Um if you're an individual and you would even just like to give us like two pound a month, like
that would also be fantastic. Um and at the moment, it's really hard to set those up. So you would have to get in contact with us to do that. But when our charity is set up properly, uh and when our website has been revamped, that should be much easier to do from the user end. And so um so at the point of entry is that free to to a land owner? Oh yeah. Everything to a land owner is
free. Okay. Yeah. We do everything we can to uh democratize it. You know we don't want richer people being able to get more woodland or you know a land owner that lives in a caravan to not be able to get any woodlands. You know we want it to be available to everybody. And what's the smallest amount of area that you look at? cuz I've got a garden that's about as big as this bit of paper, you know, and I'd love to turn it
into a wooded area. Really, we would be looking at about an acre or two being the smallest for it to be effective. But if you have a I don't know like a really really nice project um which is going to have a really big impact. Let's say you're planning on I don't know breeding red squirrels in your garden and you need the habitat to do it. we may be able to get involved then. So, it really
depends. Okay. Cool. Cool. Round three. Um and then with individuals, you also uh have volunteers come and help you. Yes. Yes, we do. So, um again, uh we put it all out on social media as much as we can to tell people when upcoming volunteer days are. Um we will have uh we do have a newsletter as well that we can add people to and the volunteer days are put on there as well. Um, so they're
the two options in terms of getting involved in volunteer. Is there a planting season? Yes. What's the What is that? The planting season is roughly in Cormal from December to March. Okay. Yeah. So, um, but then the rest of the year we're doing the maintenance work, which also requires volunteers. Brilliant. Brilliant. So, what's the one thing that we can all start doing today that will make a better tomorrow and
help us find a greener room? Uh, just buy less. Buy less. buy less doesn't in whatever way you can. Um just you just don't necessarily need as much as you think you might need. And if you can pull less resources from the planet, then that's all the better. Amazing. Really amazing. Ray, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for what you're doing
for the planet. Thank you. And thank you for what you're doing for the people. Thank you. And uh thank you for coming on the show. Yeah. Well, you're very welcome. Thank you. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Searching for a Green Room. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Let us know what you think, who you'd like to hear from, any topics you want us to cover. Drop us a comment. Don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next time.
The Chat
The Guest: Rai Lewis
Co-Founder of Plant One Cornwall, Community Woodland Advocate, Environmental Connector
The Chat
From Seeds of Connection to Woodland Action
Rai shares his early journey, tracing childhood sparks of curiosity in the outdoors through to the experiences that shaped his view of the natural world. Before Plant One Cornwall, Rai’s path wove through moments of reflection and turning points that made the commitment to restoring woodlands both inevitable and deeply personal.
The Birth of Plant One Cornwall
We explore how a simple idea took root and grew into an organisation linking landowners, businesses, and communities. Rai explains why planting the right trees in the right places matters more than chasing numbers, and how Cornwall’s unique pressures on land use demand careful, considered choices.
Biodiversity and Genetic Diversity
Looking at woodland resilience, Rai unpacks the importance of genetic diversity in trees and how this translates to a richer, more balanced biodiversity. He highlights why diversity is not just about what is visible above ground but about the resilience of ecosystems over decades.
Carbon Credits and Net Zero
Tree planting is often tied to carbon offsets and net-zero targets. Rai discusses whether these schemes are helpful or a distraction, and why a narrow focus on carbon can miss the bigger picture of ecological health.
Misconceptions and Realities
From the assumption that Britain has plenty of space for trees to the idea that planting alone can solve the climate crisis, Rai clears up some of the most common misunderstandings he encounters when talking about woodland creation in Cornwall.
What Success Looks Like
Rai paints a vision for the future: Cornwall filled with connected, thriving woodlands that balance biodiversity, community, and climate resilience. Looking 20 to 30 years ahead, he shares what would feel like true success for Plant One Cornwall.
Hope in Action
Despite challenges, Rai remains hopeful. He draws inspiration from local communities, the energy of younger generations, and the simple act of people coming together to plant and care for trees.
Rai’s Top Achievable Tips
-
Do something that’s achievable for YOU
-
Perfection is the enemy of progress – you don’t need to be perfect
-
Be angry, not sad
-
If nothing else, collect and use rainwater
-
Eat less meat
Rai’s Evidence
-
The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben
-
BBC – 5 Mind-Blowing Facts about what the UK looks like
-
Fauna and Flora International – science-led global conservation work
-
Restor.eco – open ecological restoration data platform
What One Thing Can We Do Today to Make a Better Tomorrow?
Plant a tree with thought and care, or support those who are restoring the right trees in the right places. Small acts, done collectively, can create living legacies for future generations.
Contact Details
Plant One Cornwall
Website: plantonecornwall.com
Facebook: facebook.com/plant1cornwall
Instagram: instagram.com/plant1_cornwall
