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This Earth Day, the TreadRight Foundation, a joint initiative between The Travel Corporation’s (TTC) 40 award-winning brands, announces its newest project partner, Scotland-based Trees For Life, and their support for its rewilding 'Wild Pine' project. The rewilding project led by Trees For Life is creating lasting change by restoring Scotland’s globally important Caledonian Forest and its unique wildlife. It is the first project TreadRight has announced since shifting its focus to championing nature-based solutions (NbS) in support of its three pillars: Planet, People and Wildlife.

rewilding garden

© Trees for Life

“This Earth Day’s theme is ‘invest in our planet’ and TreadRight is pleased to partner with Trees For Life, a strong nature-based solutions charity working to tackle the overlapping nature and climate emergencies and create a cascade of benefits for people,” says Shannon Guihan, The Travel Corporation’s Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of The TreadRight Foundation. “NbS include the conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems, and improved land management to either reduce carbon emissions or to store carbon in the planet”, she adds.

People potting plants

© Paul Campbell

Trees For Life is dedicated to rewilding the Scottish Highlands. According to the charity, wild pinewoods once covered an estimated one million hectares of Scotland; today only about 2% of this life-supporting habitat remains, broken into small and isolated fragments with many under threat and in poor condition.

Thanks to the support of thousands of volunteers from around the world, Trees For Life ­– which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year – is saving this exceptional forest habitat and its wildlife from being lost forever, whilst simultaneously creating social and economic benefits for local communities.

aerial shot of rewilding gardens

© Ashley Coombes

Their rewilding efforts are vital in supporting our planet, and coveted within that, the ambitions of The TreadRight Foundation. Rewilding is an effective means of protecting and restoring sustainable biodiversity, natural landscapes, and wildlife whilst removing carbon emissions from the atmosphere. Alongside prioritizing the reduction of carbon emissions, supporting nature-based solutions that remove and store pre-existing emissions is an integral component in the global journey towards net zero – the critical goalpost to avoid a climate disaster according to the latest climate science.

Trees For Life is TreadRight’s third nature-based solution partner, in addition to US-based GreenWave and Project Vesta, both marine-based initiatives.

About The TreadRight Foundation

TreadRight is The Travel Corporation’s philanthropic arm, a global travel provider whose mission is to MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® for both its guests and the destinations and communities it visits with its family of 40 award-winning brands, including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Contiki, Uniworld, Highland Explorer Tours, HAGGiS Adventures and Red Carnation Hotels.

In 2022, TTC became the first tour operator with validated near-term, long-term, and  net zero targets. In support of these targets TTC also announced an internal Carbon Fund to invest in its net zero transition, in concert with TreadRight’s prioritization of nature-based solutions.