Georgina McLeod, project head, Woodland Trust
Can you tell us a little about the Woodland Trust parliamentary reception and its main aims and purposes?
The major aim of the parliamentary reception was to engage parliamentarians in the Jubilee Woods project, which has been developed to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
To commemorate this historic occasion, the Woodland Trust wants to plant six million trees across the UK.
It's a really ambitious project, a different form of celebration that will leave a fantastic legacy. When the champagne corks have all finished popping, we'll have planted trees that will hopefully go on for hundreds of years, for our children and grandchildren.
The project itself is going to create hundreds of new woods across the country, 300 actually, and 60 of those are going to be really special - Diamond Woods - which will be 60 acres each.
One of the aims of the parliamentary reception was to try and enthuse, encourage and inspire MPs and peers to try and help us find some of those 60-acre sites.
How is the Jubilee Woods project progressing? How can different groups such as schools and community organisations become involved?
We've already got local authorities involved such as Stoke-on-Trent, who are planting two 60-acre sites, and they're right in the middle of housing estates, for example, so they're going to provide such an amazing benefit in having publicly accessible woods.
We've also got lots of private owners involved in the project as well. We would ask MPs and peers to go out and lobby their local authorities and neighbouring landowners, to talk to them on our behalf and see if they can find anybody that would like to plant trees.
We have a team of forest experts who can help by providing advice and even applying for grants. We're also hoping to engage thousands of schools and communities, and we'll be giving out about 20,000 free tree packs.
We're already fully subscribed for February schools packs, which is really exciting. Schools seem to have been so excited by the idea of planting trees for the Jubilee, that it's really caught their imaginations.
In communities, there will be organisations such as Young Offenders' groups planting trees. It's about getting people out, getting them digging, so again if MPs have constituencies where they think there are community groups that would like to get involved, then tell them to get in touch with the Woodland Trust. We have packs of trees to give away in different sizes and still have some available for February and plenty for November 2012.
We're also trying to inspire a million people to plant a tree in their garden. If you visit our website, you can see what tree to choose and where to buy the tree.
The jewel in the crown of the whole programme is the Diamond Wood that we will own in the National Forest. We have identified 460 acres of land in North-West Leicestershire. At the moment it is a bare site, part of which was once used for mining, and the land has been reclaimed.
The Woodland Trust is fundraising at the moment to try and buy the site and begin planting over the coming years with the help of local communities, in order to create what we think will be a national growing monument to Her Majesty, which - unlike a statue - will continue to grow.
What key messages would you wish to send to parliamentarians as the Jubilee Woods project gathers pace?
Part of the Diamond Wood in the National Forest will be reserved for a special parliamentary grove, and we think that this is a really appropriate tribute for parliamentarians to mark this great celebration. For just £20 they can sponsor a tree and create a lasting legacy to the Monarchy.
We would love all MPs and peers to get their chequebooks out and dedicate a tree. We also hope that they can help us with connections to find places to plant woods and fundraising connections, in order to raise the £8m we need to make this happen.
It's about getting the message out for us and putting us in touch with people of influence.
Sophie Churchill, chief executive, National Forest Company
Can you tell us more about the Diamond Wood project and your involvement in it?
We have been working with the Woodland Trust since the National Forest started in the 1990s. We have a small team that's responsible for 200 square miles, changing it into a forested landscape.
The Woodland Trust already has some land in the National Forest, and they've been really good with taking on land and doing imaginative things with it.
They were looking then for a really big site, and as it happened, there was a landowner who was in the process of passing land on to us.
We shouldn't underestimate the amount of technical work that the Woodland Trust has to do – it's a big piece of land assembly, there are lots of contracts – but we ourselves were delighted to help because we do not want to become huge landowners in the forest. The model is supposed to be that there are many different landowners in the forest, of which the Woodland Trust is one. So they're an important and good friend, and as it happened we had this land on our books, and we were only too glad to come to an arrangement about it.
We also have really good community links; we know the local parishes, so it's been a really good joint effort to make sure that the local community really gets what this is about.
We had the first big local meeting last week; I don't think anyone knew whether there'd be three people there or lots, and it was packed, with more than 100 local people. And they were saying that it was wonderful, because their community now has a decisive message that open-cast mining isn't going to carry on. For them, it closed a whole era of mining. They're very proud that, of all the sites in the country, this place should be chosen.
So it's distinctive - but because it's in the National Forest, there's also a chance for it to link up to other sites through cycling and horse riding. So for us, it's another one of the building blocks.