Dead Christmas Trees Are Saving This Beach.

Here on the northwest coast of England, there's a beach where something rather unusual happens every February. Thousands of discarded Christmas trees are partially buried beneath the sand. It sounds completely bizarre but there's actually a very good reason for it. Two years ago I came here just after the trees had been buried and today I've come back to see if they're doing what they're meant to do and also to revisit some of the fascinating comments that first video received. Hmm Christmas tree looks like the top of a Christmas tree to me. It's so funny just like Christmas trees poking up out of the sand here. So if you haven't heard about this you might be wondering, you might be asking the question why would anyone be planting burying thousands of Christmas trees on a beach? In order to understand that you have to look at the wider ecosystem here, sand dunes. Now these habitats are just as important as they are for ecology as they are for us. But these sand dunes here they act as a living coastal defense system. They act as natural barriers protecting the town here. This is this is St Ants. These dunes are protecting it from you know severe storm surges and from all of the weather systems which come in here. And while sand dunes are important for wildlife and they are important for people here they've also been declining. Now this has been due to urbanization, it's been due to development. You know just up there you've got Blackpool. In all of this urbanization here they've lost 80% of their sand dunes but also because of coastal squeeze. I mean sand dunes are dynamic places they're ever-changing. As the sea level is rising you know the tide is right out today but as it comes in you will get this natural coastal erosion here. Now as I mentioned sand dunes are dynamic places. They're ever-changing due to the elements and it's the wind and sea which moves the sand that enables them to form. But the crucial part about sand dune formation is that it needs an obstacle for it to build upon. So just using my bag here I'm going to demonstrate how sand dunes form. Look as you can see my bag is slowly becoming a sand dune. And it doesn't really matter what obstacle is. It could be your bag, your camera bag or it could be a Christmas tree. So this particular spot here is actually pretty great because you can see how the sand builds up. How the dune begins to form around the trees. Now notice this grass species here. This I believe is known as Maram grass and this is kind of like phase two of rebuilding the sand dunes. So the trees go in, they get buried, the sand blows in, it builds up. But then it's this Maram grass which comes in and it lays down these long roots as you can see here. Lays down all these long roots which holds the dune systems together. Another really gorgeous looking plant here. That bumblebee is having a good time on there. So I've looked it up. This plant here is known as seed holly but it is just absolutely covered in pollinators, bumblebees. So cool. Such an interesting looking leaf. Then we have some ragwort here which is growing. It's a really beautiful contrast actually. So the work here is part of the filed sand dunes project and while this is great for ecology and the people living here, what I love most is the community element of this project. It's at the heart of it. All the way from sourcing the trees to putting them in the sand. Getting started in 2012, the project has ran every year since and you can see how they've expanded the dunes seawards. These images really show just how effective the restoration is. These images have come from the Visit St Anne's website and the Local Wildlife Trust website which I've linked in the description for you to learn more and of course donate to if you wish. So I came here two years ago and I think the dunes which I'm walking on now, I think these dunes have got Christmas trees beneath them. I think it's time to wander around and look for clues. I actually think that I will find it once I get to the edge of the dunes here which goes off out to the beach and into the sea. Once you get to the edge that's where I might see the remnants of the last trees which should just be poking up. Hold on a minute. What's that? What's that over there? You know what always surprises me is the resourcefulness. It's the creativity of people who would have thought that planting dead Christmas trees on a beach would help rebuild an ecosystem and that's exactly why I've been enjoying the book from Hungry Minds who are sponsoring this video. So while this this tome is called the book it's actually subtitled The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding Civilization. Let's hope we don't have to do that anytime soon. But this book is much more than just a guide it's a beautifully presented almost whimsically illustrated collection of humanity's greatest inventions and discoveries. Like this look a perpetual motion machine and just as it tells you the main component here unfortunately a big ink splodge or like a coffee stain has been spilt on it. With over 400 pages you don't really read this book. You fall into it. You open it on one page and then suddenly you're three topics away from wondering how some incredible invention came to exist. It's also just a beautiful object and it looks fantastic wherever you place it. Even in a sand dune it looks pretty cool. And the project itself was actually crowdfunded raising over three million pounds which just shows you just how popular it was before it was even printed. Yeah it's a really really cool book and if you want to go and get this just use the link in the description or comments and be sure to use leavecurious10 to get 10% off. Okay all right this is looking this is looking more like it. All right so it's it's clearly working because each year they they they plant a new row and we're now in July which means that six months or so ago they would have planted Christmas trees along where these wooden stakes are and you can barely see them. Look this is all that's left of them. Just these tippy top bits which are poking out. Now I'm sorry I'm actually quite amazed at how little of the trees are actually left. It's just the tops which are poking up. So the last lot of trees would have gone in here which means that these trees these these mounds which we see here that means that there's Christmas trees beneath them. Let's go have a look at these. You've already got the marram grass coming in which is going to be solidifying and securing the dunes and I wouldn't imagine it would be too long until they're like these these taller dunes at the back. So on that initial video there were hundreds of comments there were many in support of the project but there was also some which raised some you know quite interesting and important questions which I want to get through now but what I'm going to do first is find a good spot to pop this so I can build up some some dunes. That was a bit of a half-assed attempt at planting the tree there. If you like Leave Curious and you like learning about nature and you want to do your bit to help it come back then I must encourage you to put your email down on the Leave Curious list. Later this year I'll be launching the Leave Curious membership. Now this will not only be a place where you can take actions toward restoring nature yourself but we'll also hear from nature restoration experts and we'll be creating a fund to restore nature. I don't know why but my mind went to a tombstone when I saw this. It's definitely not a tombstone. Anything underneath? No. I actually don't think that these trees here have been buried. I actually think this was a bit of a storage ground for some of the loose old trees from what I remember. There was just a few trees scattered around here just piling up but they're great because they'll actually help me explain some of these points. Now the first one which came up is they'll just rot away and I can understand you know all right putting the trees in you would want them to kind of stay long enough in order for the dunes to build up but that's the whole point. We want them to rot away. The trees are serving as a temporary scaffold for that primary ecological succession to take place and actually as this wood decomposes it'll be giving the sand some more nutrients, more moisture which will be really important for these other pioneer plant species to move in and actually lock up the sand dunes long before these actually decompose. Now another concern which came up is won't all the needles make the sand dunes acidic? Now while in say a garden environment or certainly within a pot these needles will lower the pH in a sand dune system it won't really be having that much of an impact. Coastal sand dunes like here at St Anne's are constantly refreshed by marine sediments rich in alkaline calcium carbonate from crushed shells. This will easily buff out the mild acids which are released from the trees and you can see it in all of the wonderful vegetation which is coming up now. Now another one which I quite liked is won't people just fall through these giant holes? I guess you know perhaps there'll be as the trees decompose or maybe there'll just naturally be gaps and spaces. You know these dunes while they have you know shot up it will take months in order for them to form and then what happens is that sand just compacts and compacts and compacts and really the trees decomposing it's going to take decades potentially centuries. What's also cool is while this is the process which you know I first heard about here at St Anne's this is also a restoration process which is happening all over the world. Discarded Christmas trees slow marshland erosion in Louisiana, they rebuild barrier islands in Texas and they also mirror the centuries-old brushwood sediment traps in the Netherlands. And this is also pretty cool because it is a nature-based solution to you know sea and flood defense. You know when we think about how we do defend against the sea and flooding it's very often with concrete and very high walls and that often just makes the problem a lot worse. So yeah nature-based solutions are absolutely the way forward especially when they're recycling old Christmas trees. If you've enjoyed this video and you would like to support the channel the best way is by becoming a member over on Patreon. Oh man that feels good. If you would like to keep watching the channel just click the video which is on screen now. In the meantime thank you so much for watching. Leave curious!