Love Your Forest is a campaign that explores different ways to reduce littering and increase recycling in the Forest.
The campaign was launched in 2016 by environmental charity Hubbub and Suntory Beverage & Food GB&I and supported by the Forest of Dean District Council and Forestry England. In 2017, Visit Dean Wye and Foresters’ Forest also joined the campaign.
The campaign aims to involve and help people from across the community to clean up the areas in which they live and take pride and ownership of the area.
A special focus has been to keep the many local heritage features tidy of litter, and has also been a way for older people to educate the younger generation about these during community litter picks.
Other Love Your Forest activities have ranged from schools workshops, creative interventions such as the ‘Trashconverter’ van and art installations such as the ‘Communitrees’ – where giant faces made from waste materials were installed on trees.
We have been encouraging a community that is better able to look after its own problems, to work with relevant authorities positively and pro-actively to bring about positive environmental change, and to create the understanding that dropping litter is not acceptable.
To find out how much Love Your Forest campaign has achieved we recommend reading the campaign impact reports.
Read the Love Your Forest 5-Year Summary Report and Love Your Forest Impact Report 2020-21
If you are thinking of developing a similar initiative in your area you will also find a link to an inspiration guide. All this can be found on the Hubbub website: www.hubbub.org.uk/LoveYourForest
The Love Your Forest campaign continues. We encourage anyone who is local to the Forest of Dean and interested in getting involved with litter picks and other aspects of the campaign to follow the Love Your Forest Facebook page: www.facebook.com/LoveYourForest