Volunteers plant 45 trees on Braid Hill to improve wildlife and biodiversity 

THE Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust (ELGT) has planted 45 trees at Braid Hills this week, with the help of volunteers from JP Morgan Chase. 

ELGT is a charity dedicated to providing environment and community projects across the city, caring for the countryside whilst improving urban greenspaces. 

The trees were planted by volunteers from the JP Morgan Chase employee-led volunteer programme called GoodWorks, which encourages staff to participate in local engagements in their communities. 

ELGT have previously conducted projects on Braid Hills, such as “Branching Out” which was a programme of therapeutic activities using interactions with woodlands in 2008, and improving the Hermitage of Braid access in August last year. 

ELGT posted to social media yesterday, saying: “We planted 45 trees at Braid Hills this week thanks to a fantastic team of volunteers from JP Morgan Chase. 

“It is wonderful to see the site enhanced to benefit wildlife & improve biodiversity.” 

In 2020, the City of Edinburgh Council set a target of becoming a million-tree city by 2030, which means planting 250,000 trees by then. 

They are working with both the Edinburgh and Lothians Greenspace Trust and the Woodland Trust to reach this goal. 

The Woodland Trust, the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity, contributed a grant of £298,055 from their Emergency Tree Fund to support the delivery of this project. 

This money also supports project management and drive tree planting and volunteer activity such as that seen this week. 

J.P. Morgan Chase, who have offices in Edinburgh’s Lochside View, say that their GoodWorks programmes mean that “employees share their passions with each other through local engagements that serve immediate needs in their communities such as homelessness, hunger relief, disaster recovery, animal welfare, and more”. 

ELGT are currently looking for “Tree Time” volunteers to help with their tree planting initiative, to combat the loss of street trees in the city. 

They say that in the last 20 years, we have lost over 2,450 street trees in Edinburgh and the Lothians which have died and not been replanted. 

This initiative is also part of the Million Tree City project, and is delivered in partnership with the council, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. 

A spokesperson for ELGT said today: “The site at Braid Hills was dominated by gorse which resulted in a lack of diversity.

“The aim of this project is to improve biodiversity and create a more varied habitat. The project involved removing small pockets of gorse and planting trees in those areas.

“We have planted a total of 1,255 trees over the past few years. 155 new trees were planted this season with two corporate volunteer groups with a combined total of 12 volunteers: Artemis Fund via Trees for Cities and JP Morgan & Chase.

“Two corporate groups have also planted replacement trees this season.”