While trees and tree planting in general are widely seen as a universal “good”, the subtlety of which species is not widely appreciated. BUT:

• millions of people around the world rely on food, medicine or other products that can only be derived from a particular species of tree;
• the life-cycle of many animals or plants is inextricably tied to certain trees;
• many timber users (both industrial and subsistence scale) need wood with special properties;
• in many cultures, particular trees play an important spiritual role, such as the kapok tree in South America, which is believed to link heaven and earth.

Despite their importance over 8,000 tree species, 10% of the world's total, are threatened with extinction. Even more worryingly 1,002 species are listed as critically endangered – likely to go extinct unless urgent action is taken now to save them.

How we work

We aim to be the advocate and voice for threatened trees, both catalysing others to take action and directly supporting threatened tree conservation. We do this in three main ways:

• Directly supporting threatened tree projects

We support a range of projects focussing on the conservation of some of the world’s most threatened tree species , including those with cultural, economic and ecological values . Read more about current Global Trees Campaign projects, or learn more about some of our past successes.

• Developing capacity for saving threatened trees

We are working to help our local partners around the world develop the skills and techniques for threatened tree conserv ation. For example, we aim to provide training and advice on the best ways to identify and conserve trees , produce ‘tool kits’ to guide and assist with tree conservation techniques and provide examples of best practice to help share learning.

• Encouraging others to consider threatened trees

A great variety of organisations have the potential to influence the future for threatened trees , for example, taxon-specific conservation groups, corporates with significant land holdings, tree planting initiatives and development programmes. We aim to persuade such groups of the value of protecting threatened tree species, and advise them how this could be integrated into their existing activities.