Summary
Coastal communities are at significant risk from the impacts from climate change, such as coastal erosion and flooding, so it is important that these communities are collectively involved in local actions, like tree planting, to mitigate the impacts.
The Coastal Community Growing Together (CCGT) project developed an online platform to foster this type of collective action despite social distancing measures. The platform included a mapping tool, a tree carbon calculator, a community response dashboard, and interactive educational resources. By showing the best location to plant trees, and explaining the benefits of doing so, these tools helped to raise awareness of climate change and increase community participation.
Over 800 participants were involved, including school children and citizen’s groups in Pembrokeshire, Wales. The project has promoted the uptake of local climate actions, helping to protect the environment and promote biodiversity.
Research description
Community tree planting is widely recognised as an important nature-based response to the impacts of climate change, and it is a creative approach to raising awareness of the issue. However, tree planting initiatives are often designed as one-off events, rather than considering the lifecycle of trees and the possibilities this offers for long-term community engagement with the climate and biodiversity crises. CCGT aimed to broaden the potential of tree planting initiatives by addressing the need for on-going community engagement with climate actions.
The CCGT is part of a larger project that aimed to help coastal communities adapt to climate change. To do so, researchers at UCD collaborated with local organisations to engage school children, teachers, retired people, women’s groups and councillors using an online platform. This platform enables participants to identify the best locations to plant trees through the combination of local area maps and visual media content, promoting learning about nature-based solutions.
For example, the educational resources on the platform helped communities understand the preferred conditions (soils, sunlight, etc.) for each tree species, and increased their knowledge of native trees. As a result, communities developed a better understanding of the role that trees play in local carbon sequestration (i.e., capturing and storing carbon dioxide). One participant’s feedback on the platform said: “It has inspired me to plant more trees in the garden and to consider the impact of daily activities.”
The CCGT platform changes the way tree planting initiatives engage with communities. The “Community Response Dashboard” and the “Tree Carbon Calculator” encourage much needed long-term engagement with climate action. These user-friendly tools provide real-time monitoring of the carbon sequestration and the biodiversity benefits resulting from the tree planting activity, so that users can monitor the impacts of their participation over time. Another participant said that they: “Cycle to work more often than driving. I had no idea of how social media has a carbon footprint! I will use Facebook less.”
Many of the online tools that aim to increase citizen engagement in climate action depend on proprietary tools which incur large license fees. Similarly, many of the existing open-source tools are project-specific and also require advanced GIS and programming skills. This poses difficulties for research teams or community engagement practitioners who may lack the necessary technical expertise or finances to create bespoke tools.