Killucan woman’s bid to plant 10,000 trees in the Tropics

A campaign has been set up to plant ‘10,000 Trees in the Tropics’ by Killucan-based artist Claire Bracken.

This year, Claire has already planted 10,000 native Irish trees with partner Tom Leavy at their farm in Killucan.

She then decided to match that number in the Tropics for Earth Day 2021, inspired by the charity, the TreeSisters.

As Earth Day fell on Thursday April 22 last, Claire linked in with three schools via Zoom, including St Joseph’s, Rathwire, to explain about the day and her decision to commit to try to raise the funds for 10,000 trees to be planted in the tropics.

All of the funds raised will be going to the TreeSisters charity, a charity that works towards planting a billion trees a year.

“We all know that both the earth’s future and our own future are at risk, and that planting trees is hands down the best thing we can be doing right now – focusing on the tropics first,” Claire said. “We are asking people to donate 10,000 Trees for the Tropics on our GoFundMe page – €25 plants 50 trees and we’re asking people to give what they can.”

Speaking about how she became involved in kick-starting the campaign, the Dublin native said she moved to Killucan two years ago to live with her partner, Tom.

“We live on Tom’s family land and there’s lots of space here. Both my parents were from Westmeath, my mum was from Rochfortbridge and my dad from Kilbeggan – both passed away within the last seven years. So in a way I feel like I’ve come back to my roots.

“Tom’s a horticulturalist and very passionate about the environment and sustainability. He wanted to plant loads of trees and we applied four years ago for it. It was a four-year process to get to where we are today and during the month of March we planted 10,000 native Irish trees here on the land – birch, oak, hawthorn and cherries.

“We did that throughout the whole month of March and we had a few people helping us. They’re saplings at the moment, so it doesn’t look like a forest just yet, but in 15 or 20 years’ time, they’ll start looking impressive.”

An artist, this year Claire began taking an interest in and getting involved in hosting women’s groups.

“I decided to take a course in the facilitating of women’s circles in February, but it’s quite a practical course, and you learn as you go, so I had to gather my own group of women and host my first Zoom gathering in February.

“On one of my women’s circles, the Trailblazery, is a lovely community group and they do really inspiring work for people. They’ve hosted lots of speakers and in March I went along to a side group, where the guest speaker was a women called Clare Dubois, who set up the charity TreeSisters.

“She had a near death experience and got a message to help reforest the globe, starting with the tropics. I felt deeply inspired by her story ahead of Earth Day on April 22 and I wanted to do something positive. I thought if we can plant 10,000 trees here, why not the tropics.

“I felt it would be an amazing goal because the tropics are the lungs of the planet – when they go, we’ll all be in trouble – that’s why an immediate response is needed.

“So far TreeSisters have managed to plant 15 million trees in countries like India, Borneo, Brazil and Nepal. They’re aiming for one billion trees a year because that’s what’s needed to fix the problem.

“In the last 60 years, the population of our planet has doubled while the wild spaces have almost halved – so it’s completely out of balance. And it’s not slowing down, deforestation is still going on out in the tropics, just to provide the first world with everything that we have here.

“Much of our lifestyle is supported from the acts deforestation. We need to really understand that we are living way beyond our environmental means, that the planet cannot cope with our impact on it, and that planting millions of trees each year is one of the most important things we can actively do to help support the restoration of the Earth and her ecosystems.

“Obviously we can’t do this ourselves, so we must support those who are ethically planting trees and supporting local communities in the Tropics already. TreeSisters are doing just that, but we need to continue to support them because this is not just a quick fix, this is the lifetime mission of our generation, to reforest the world, especially the tropics.

“We have to take responsibility, we can’t have the lives we live over here and expect it to carry on. A lot of our goods are coming from that part of the world, whether it’s fuel, food or household items. We are responsible for the tropics and we have to do something about it. We only have about 10 years to fix the problem.”

So passionate about her goal, Claire hosted a webinar called Let’s Talk About the Trees, which 100 people attended. Seven speakers gave information about the plight of the tropical regions, and there was live music by Aoife Scott as a fundraiser to help her with her GoFundMe goal.

“It’s a pretty big deal to say that you planted 50 trees, and that costs just €25. We’re halfway towards the target of €5,000 at the moment, and hopefully we reach it. Earth Day is just one day out of the year to try to do something positive for the planet, and it needs to flagged more often.

“For me, this year is about planting the seed for a much bigger recognition of Earth Day in the coming years. I feel that it deserves just as much attention as the other events of the year. Our planet is in real danger, the lungs of the earth – the tropical rain forests – are disappearing and we cannot survive without them. We must send aid, we must plant trees.

“I’m not a big fan of Christmas, it’s all about stuff, and it’s shoved down our throats for four months, the same as Easter and Halloween. Earth Day is only one day in the year and it’s to say we need to be responsible for our planet,” Claire said.

“I’m hoping to raise awareness through this fundraiser, by doing something positive and reaching out to help the tropics. It’s not about volunteers going over there to plant trees, all the money goes over there, the charity works with the local communities to help plant these trees.

Claire is hoping that her GoFundMe campaign can do something to help combat this issue and help give the world what it needs: trees!

To donate and find out more about the campaign go to is gofundme.com/f/10000-trees-for-the-tropicsclaire-brackens-fund