Principles - who | The Mersey Forest : The Mersey Forest

Team and Partners
1. Partnership is central to our work. A dedicated team supports the partnership to deliver The Mersey Forest Plan. We continually seek to strengthen and develop our partnerships.
2. Our core partnership and Steering Group consists of eight Local Authorities – Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral – as well as the Forestry Commission.
3. We work with a wide range of public, private, and community organisations, from local to national levels, and from delivery to strategy. This includes Defra, Natural England, and the Environment Agency; the environment sector across Cheshire and Merseyside, including through Local Nature Partnerships; across sectors (e.g. health, water, and education) to achieve shared outcomes, for example working with health sector and river catchment partnerships; and with academics and researchers.
4. Critical local partners include communities, landowners, managers, and farmers, businesses, and schools.
5. We are one of England’s Community Forests, working as a network to support each other and amplify our voice nationally.
6. We are part of the strategic Northern Forest, alongside the Woodland Trust and other Community Forests.

Communities
1. We work alongside people to help them to achieve what is needed in their local communities for different reasons. Creating opportunities for communities to contribute and lead, and for mutual learning.
2. We will seek to provide a range of opportunities, routes, and support for people to get involved. These will need to reflect the needs and different modes of engagement of the various communities we work with, taking into account differing life stages, motivations and interests, time availability, language, financial resources, etc. Opportunities to get involved will focus on the five steps to wellbeing as well as on the five pathways to nature connectedness.
3. We will involve and learn from local communities and groups, including tree and woodland and “friends of” groups, as well as reaching out to people whose voice is seldom heard. This includes young and old people, diverse ethnicities and faiths, and intersections of these communities. This helps to build a sense of local and global belonging, and connections across people, places and time.

Landowners, managers, and farmers
1. We advise and support public and private landowners and managers, including farmers, to establish, look after, and grow a culture of trees, woods, and other habitats on their land.
2. We recognise that different landowners and managers have different needs and requirements from schemes, and we work alongside them to ensure that these are met.
3. The farming community is a group with very specific needs. We work with farmers to support food security and to help them to incorporate trees into farms and improve their management for the many benefits they can bring. This includes the potential for income diversification, sustaining healthy soils and livestock, and climate and flood resilience, alongside increased carbon storage and more abundant wildlife. Approaches are tailored for individual farms, and can include hedgerows and hedgerow trees, tree establishment on marginal or lower quality land, and agroforestry.
4. Businesses and schools are other important landowners and managers.

Businesses
1. Encourage businesses to support our work and bring benefits for people, nature, and climate as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental, Social and Governance frameworks.
2. Embed a respect for tree, woods, and other habitats throughout their workplace culture. We are keen to explore ways to get involved, including through private green finance, volunteering days, pro bono work, and other mechanisms. Businesses can also establish, look after, and grow a culture of trees, woods, and other habitats on their own land. This could help to attract and retain employees.

Schools
1. Support schools to increase and look after trees, woods, and other habitats in their grounds. Even small spaces provide crucial opportunities for play and outdoor learning.
2. Embed trees, woods, and other habitats into school culture; both in the curriculum and throughout school life, through spontaneous play and outdoor lessons. Schools also provide an opportunity to grow this culture in their wider communities.

Our principles