A unique Forest Eye living tree feature focuses attention on forests fighting climate change and children planted the first trees forming a giant forest eye in Dalby Forest, North Yorkshire, joining representatives from Forestry England, arts organisation Sand In Your Eye and the Environment Agency on a unique project set to create the largest living forest feature in England. Source: Timberbiz
The 300-metre-wide eye will be planted with 5,000 beech, alder and maple trees in the shape of a child’s eye marked out on an existing clearing in the forest. The Forest Eye is being created to focus attention on climate change and show the important role of resilient forests in tackling it, as well as highlight children’s ideas for a flourishing future natural environment.
Working with Sand In Your Eye in a forest for the first time, the feature will be visible from the air in six years as the trees mature and will be carefully managed as an integral part of Dalby Forest. The forest covers more than 3,500 hectares in the North York Moors National Park and welcomes 450,000 day visits each year. The forest eye will engage visitors and spark conversation as it changes and grows, at a time when people are feeling the urgent crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
The broadleaf tree species of beech, alder and maple which will create the eye shape have been carefully selected to grow well in the soils on the site and are expected to thrive as the climate changes. Once established, the forest eye will grow alongside the mixed broadleaf and conifer trees of the Dalby Forest landscape providing habitat for wildlife including bats, birds and small mammals, as well as capturing carbon, improving air quality and offering a beautiful place for people to explore and connect with the natural world.
The Forest Eye is looking out to the world and is around 300m across. Its scale is critical as it matches the scale of a second forest that it is planned to plant in the UK called the Forest of Humanity. The ambition is to create the whole face of a young girl at the same scale, measuring 2000m across. Those trees that are planted in the Forest Eye are the very beginning.
