The what of Belfast? The Forest of Belfast. Where's that? There are the trees of the old Shaftesbury domaine, the woods on the hills that form a crescent around the city. Even, God bless us, Hazelwood at Bellevue. The forest? Well, forest is an elastic term. It covers, as the dictionary has it, "a large tract covered with trees and undergrowth, sometimes mixed with pasture, also places where trees grew thickly but not any more, now cultivated." And it instances Sherwood and Ettrick in England. Anyway the Forest of Belfast is an initiative concerned with all trees, whether public or privately owned in Belfast and environs. The Forest of Belfast is a concept that encourages, supports and assists tree-planting throughout the Greater Belfast urban area, with emphasis on supporting community planting.
Ben Simon, Forest Officer, Forest of Belfast spoke to the National Conference on Urban Forestry in Galway some two years ago. Every year the organisation distributes trees to the value of about stg.£10,000 to community groups. A scheme ending this year will have supplied over 40,000 trees to over 130 groups. Obviously, too, its work must stimulate more interest in the subject of greening Belfast - in the purely arboreal sense. The speech which Ben Simon gave in Galway in the National Conference on Urban Forestry had an interesting historical and piquant example. Yew trees have been associated with church sites in Ireland for over 1,000 years. To help celebrate the Millennium the FOB (for short) is planting Irish yews at graveyards and churchyards "of all denominations" throughout its area. It is hoped to make of this a cross-border as well as a cross-community effort. In 1997 they planted 797 yew trees and a leaflet published with this was "packed with facts about yews to increase awareness of the history and folklore associated with our longest-living species of tree".
And then there is conserving existing trees, including the problems (and Dublin knows a lot about this just now), associated with trenching near trees, monitoring trenching on pavements with street and garden trees, as - and, mark this, "assisting in the training of contractors and subcontractors employed by utility companies".
The level of public awareness, says Ben Simon, quoting another authority, is very low compared with Britain. He hopes to raise it. A small example. At Christmas, why buy cut trees and holly branches when you could give a tree for planting? A lot of ideas: Tree fairs every two years. Woodland sculptures for parks have come in. So, if you are in Belfast don't ask where is this Forest of Belfast. It's all around you and growing. Y