Planting trees is never easy – but in spring 2023 the weather proved more challenging than usual with heavy snowfall in the mountains at the beginning of April.

Prior to planting, the saplings are transported from a local nursery and stored in 'natural refrigerators', basically storage areas built out of snow or ice and soil to keep them in optimal health. Once they have been planted, grass around the trees has to be trimmed to allow the trees to thrive as they establish and the trees are regularly monitored to replace any that don’t make it.

Unlike many tree planting projects, we work hard to ensure that trees survive and, crucially, that they are planted for conservation purposes – so they will not to be cut down in years to come.