Michelle Paver, author of ‘Chronicles of Ancient Darkness’, joined forty-four children from Coppice Primary School in Hainault to celebrate the Big Wild Read Summer Reading Challenge.
Run by the Reading Agency, the Summer Reading Challenge encourages children throughout the UK to get reading. This year’s challenge, the Big Wild Read, is supporting the Woodland Trust’s Tree For All campaign, the largest ever children’s tree-planting initiative in the UK, with a target to plant 12 million trees.
The children listened entranced as Michelle read to them under Squire’s Oak in Hainault Forest, and demonstrated how her character Torak makes use of materials from the wood such as nettles, berries and bark.
“My books are set in the forest of the hunter gatherers. In the stories the forest is a character in its own right,” says Michelle Paver. “It’s been great for me to be in one of England’s most ancient forests, especially as it’s right on the edge of London.”
Children who took part in the Big Wild Read through their local libraries are helping to reach that target, as each book they read has earned ‘tree tokens’ which go towards the planting of 20,000 trees in woods across the UK this autumn.
“A record number of children took the Big Wild Read challenge to ‘change your world’ and have been inspired to really make a difference to their environment, not least by helping to plant trees”, says Lynne Taylor of the Reading Agency.
The Big Wild Read links to BBC’s ‘Breathing Places’ environment initiative (bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces) which is encouraging people to engage with nature. It's part of public libraries' new partnership with BBC Vision Learning, led by the Reading Agency.
Tony Chadwick of the Woodland Trust, adds: “We’re delighted to give children the chance to plant trees through Tree For All and the Big Wild Read, and pleased that Hainault Forest and Havering Park Farm have been chosen as one of the associated woods. Many children have enjoyed the challenge over the summer; now it’s our chance to inspire some of them further by involving them in planting trees.”
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Notes to Editors
For media enquiries contact:
The Woodland Trust Press Office on 01476 581121 or email: media@woodland-trust.org.uk
Andrea Reece at The Reading Agency on 020 8889 1292 or email: andrea.reece@zen.co.uk
The Reading Agency is an independent reading development agency, a charity, funded by Arts Council England. It works mainly with public libraries to achieve its vision of a society in which everyone has free, democratic access to reading. The charity’s main areas of work are policy, research, advocacy, national partnerships and national programmes like the Summer Reading ChallengeTM – all with an emphasis on innovation.
Now in its ninth year, the reading challenge, is a favourite with children and their parents. It makes visits to the local library during the summer holidays extra special fun for children by offering great incentives and rewards for reading. Last year 660,000 children took part in The Reading Mission reading challenge, over half of them reading six or more books.
The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity. It has 300,000 members and supporters. The Trust has four key aims: i) No further loss of ancient woodland; ii) Restoring and improving the biodiversity of woods; iii) Increasing new native woodland; iv) Increasing people’s understanding and enjoyment of woodland. Established in 1972, The Woodland Trust now has over 1,000 sites in its care covering approximately 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres). Access to its sites are free. Further news can be found at www.woodland-trust.org.uk
Michelle Paver: Born in Malawi to a Belgian mother and a father who ran the tiny 'Nyasaland Times', Michelle Paver moved to the UK when she was three. She grew up in Wimbledon and, following a Biochemistry Degree from Oxford, she became a partner in a City law firm. Eventually, she gave up her career in law to follow her long-held dream of becoming a writer. Successfully published as an adult author of historical fiction, CHRONICLES OF ANCIENT DARKNESS are her first books for children.
Orion Publishing Group www.orionbooks.co.uk
Breathing Places and BBC Vision Learning:
Breathing Places is a ground breaking collaboration between the BBC and leading wildlife and conservation organisations that connects people with nature in an enjoyable way. The BBC Breathing Places initiative sits within the BBC Vision Learning section of the BBC and has been running since 2005. BBC Vision Learning projects work with broadcast programmes and take these from being passively consumed on TV to actively engaging the public with the programmes.
BBC Breathing Places works with a number of broadcast partners like Springwatch, Autumnwatch, CBBC and CBeebies, and external partners (environmental organisations, charities, etc) – to engage people with nature.
www.bbc.co.uk/breathingplaces
Havering Park Farm is part of Hainault Forest - one of the top ten sites for ancient trees in the UK. The Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is particularly noted for its large numbers of hornbeam pollards, wonderfully sculpted like modern works of art. These aged specimens support a wide range of wildlife, from owls, woodpeckers and bats to thousands of insects and communities of highly specialised lichens, mosses and fungi.
Hainault Forest is the last remaining fragment of a once much larger medieval woodland thought to have been declared a specially protected forest by Henry I around 1130, principally to provide venison for the royal table. In 1851 an Act of Parliament resulted in the felling of 100,000 trees in six weeks, which led to public outrage.
The London Borough of Redbridge: A key partner. For more please visit its website at www.redbridge.gov.uk
Heritage Lottery Fund: The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) enables communities to celebrate, look after and learn more about our diverse heritage. From our great museums and historic buildings to local parks and beauty spots or recording and celebrating traditions, customs and history, HLF grants open up our nation’s heritage for everyone to enjoy. It has supported more than 16,500 projects, allocating over £3.3 billion across the UK.
Biffaward: The Woodland Trust’s acquisition of Park Farm Havering has been part-funded by Biffaward, a multi-million pound environment fund managed by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT), which utilises landfill tax credits donated by Biffa Waste Services. In December 1997, Biffa Waste Services agreed to donate landfill tax credits to the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT) to administer under the fund name Biffaward. Grants made from the fund currently amount to more than £70 million, supporting many worthwhile environmental projects.
Biffa is a part of Severn Trent Plc and is one of the largest single suppliers of waste management services in the UK. It collects, treats, recovers and disposes of municipal, commercial and industrial waste nationwide and in Belgium.
GrantScape: The Woodland Trust’s acquisition of Park Farm Havering has also been part-funded by Grantscape. It is an environmental grant-making charity. Its aim is to work with communities nationwide in funding projects that have benefit to the local environment. While GrantScape is a new organisation, its heritage lies in the eight years of experience it has with smaller grant-making organisations, which have been consolidated under the one GrantScape name. As a result, the staff at GrantScape have been involved with grant-making since 1997 and to date have been responsible for the management and administration of over £60 million in grants throughout England and Wales. www.grantscape.org.uk
WREN: The Woodland Trust’s acquisition of Park Farm Havering has also been part-funded by Wren. It distributes landfill tax money to community and environmental projects within 10 miles of landfill sites owned and operated by Waste Recycling Group Ltd. Projects applying for grants from WREN are assessed by an individual panel of locally based experts for their suitability, sustainability and community benefit. Resource: www.wren.org.uk
The Landfill Tax Credit Scheme (LTCS) gives waste operators the opportunity to divert a proportion of their annual Landfill Tax bill into the communities and environments around landfill sites. To date the LTCS has funded almost 20,000 projects with £3/4 billion pounds in funding. Resources: www.ltcs.org.uk www.entrust.org.uk
Waste Recycling Group Limited is one of the UK's leading waste management and energy recovery companies and handles in excess of 15 million tonnes of household, commercial and industrial waste each year. Around 50% of Waste Recycling Group’s business is accounted for by waste management contracts with more than 70 local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales. The Company operates facilities for the reception, recycling and disposal of waste, including a network of waste transfer and recycling centres and strategically-situated landfill sites, and is one of the largest operators of civic amenity sites on behalf of local authorities for use by the general public. Resource: www.wrg.co.uk
