you might be interested in
Work experience
Every community across the UK deserves equitable access to trees and the benefits they bring; from reducing air and noise pollution, alleviating stress and anxiety, making our neighbourhoods more attractive places to live and work, and boosting local ecosystems. However, while some urban areas enjoy abundant greenery and tree cover, others lack these essential natural assets. Our new Tree Equity Score tool, developed in partnership with American Forests, has been developed to help us understand where disparities in urban tree cover lie.
Now we need your help to collect data from remote urban areas across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to complete our map of tree equity across the UK. Between February – May 2024, we need your help to complete over 500 tree canopy cover assessments. Do as many or as few as you like, pick any available location from our list, and complete the assessment at a time that suits you - they only take around 1.5 hours to complete. Send us your findings by the end of this project and we will add them to our database. No specialist technical knowledge is needed and guidance is provided.
This is a 'Drop-in-Days' volunteering opportunity for people that lead busy lives, or that just want to volunteer ad-hoc or for a one-off event or project. Registering to take part in this project will provide you with access to our volunteer news and we will let you know about other volunteering opportunities in your area for up to to 12 months after the initial event. You can opt out anytime.
Why we want you
The newly-launched Tree Equity Score UK helps to measure and assess levels of urban tree cover across the UK. By helping us to understand tree equity scores across the UK, we can better direct the work we, and others, do to plant and care for urban trees and ensure all communities have equal access to the benefits of trees.
The tree equity score map is currently missing tree canopy data for around 500 urban neighbourhoods – mainly in northern Scotland, mid-Wales and western Northern Ireland. We are looking for volunteers to undertake online canopy cover assessments of these neighbourhoods to help complete the map.
What you will be doing
- Choosing a neighbourhood (or several) to assess from our list
- Conducting a tree canopy cover assessment of that neighbourhood using the iTree Canopy online tool and training video
- Reporting your findings to us by the end of the project
The skills you need
- Confident using online tools, including our volunteer website Assemble and Excel documents
What's in it for you
- Volunteer in a way that suits you – do as many or as few assessments as you want!
- Contribute to our growing knowledge and understanding of tree equity across the UK
- Learn more about our new tree equity score UK tool
- Get access to our latest volunteering news through the Assemble website
