The Millennium Forest is a reforestation project which is featured elsewhere on this website.  One source of funds for the project is sponsored trees.  Sponsors often dedicate the trees they plant to the memory of a deceased family member. 

The other day one of our members contacted us to say he had checked the trees he planted a few years ago at the forest to see how they are getting on.  One of them was damaged.  The twig-like main stem has been broken, probably by an animal, maybe by the force of the wind.  Such occurrences are not uncommon, damaged saplings are replaced fairly regularly.  In this case however the tree was planted by our enquirer’s 92 year old father in memory of his much loved and sorely missed wife.  The father’s birthday was imminent and the intention was to send him, in the UK, a photograph of the tree he had planted himself in memory of his wife.  ‘What can be done?’ This is the obvious question.   On the next site visit to the forest this problem-solving exercise will be added to the list of things to do.

Proofing the text and choosing more photographs for the souvenir booklet the National Trust will soon publish to raise some funds is high on the scale of day to day priorities.  After focussing on this job a valued colleague at the RSPB in the UK emailed about a Green Paper published by the European Union entitled ‘Future relations between the EU and the Overseas Countries and Territories’.  Draft responses had been included with the email.  Can the SH National Trust read them and add suggestions and comments?  By the way, the email message finished off, can we please reply by the end of today.

Intended progress on the souvenir booklet was immediately put to one side and full attention given to checking the details in the Green Paper and the draft responses.  Non-governmental organisations in Overseas Territories such as St Helena have few opportunities to contribute information and opinion to central government in the UK or the EU.  This opportunity could not be ignored, particularly as it was part of the consultation process for a major policy review.  Cynics may say, possibly correctly, that it does not matter whether or not you feed your comments into the consultation process, ‘they’ will do what ‘they’ want anyway.  However, if an opportunity to participate in this way is ignored, then the decision making is well and truly left to the bureaucrats.

A National Trust Council is scheduled to meet shortly.  These meetings must be convened at least once a quarter.  It is about two and a half months since the last council meeting.  Three months is a very long time in the life of the National Trust and the eleven point agenda may take two hours or more to work through.  First item is to discuss the three year bid for core funding from the St Helena Government; that will raise interest among all members and a variety of suggestions and opinions is expected.  Another item covers ways to get over difficulties caused by an unexpected vacancy in a key post.  Further down the agenda the council is asked how the St Helena National Trust can take best advantage of membership of the International National Trusts Organisation, or INTO.  INTO is not quite one year old but is offering some useful assistance to small national trusts such as ours.  St Helena can take advantage of their ‘Expert Network’ to obtain technical and specialist advice, call upon them to help with campaigns and advocacy and also take advantage of training programmes they will be setting up.  This kind of assistance is precisely what low resourced Trusts such as ours really need.  Another agenda item returns to the important subject of the preservation of our built heritage and how we can progress in a meaningful way.  Strangely, there are funds inviting bids for the conservation of our natural environment but none, or next to none, offering financial assistance to restore or maintain historic buildings and fortifications.  However, we may have found a way around this problem.  After all, the reason problems exist is for us to navigate a route around them.   The main problem with this particular problem is finding a solution before the built heritage we want to preserve falls into total ruin.  Time, is now really of the essence.

Related Information

Millennium Forest

St Helena's Historic Buildings - the Island's built heritage