Future of Council’s tree planting Life Project secured

Funding for the Life Project, which gifts families a tree sapling to mark each life event - birth, marriage, civil partnership and death - registered in the Derry City and Strabane District Council area, is to continue.

Members of Council’s Health and Community committee unanimously approved the allocation of financial assistance of £4,000 going forward at Thursday’s April meeting, following the decision by the Public Health Agency (PHA) to discontinue funding from March 31, 2025. 

Life Project Volunteers plant hundreds of new saplings along Derry's Bay Road

Over 10,000 trees have been planted since the initiative started

Cllr Rory Farrell (SDLP) described the Life Project as a “wise investment to mark all these life events”. 

The aim of the Life Project, which began in 2017, is to reduce the effects of air pollution on the health and wellbeing for future generations in the Council area. 

There are approximately 4,000 such registrations annually and in most cases the sapling is taken and planted in a location of the recipients’ choosing. 

According to Council’s head of health and community wellbeing, service user feedback regularly refers to the project being a special and meaningful commemoration of important life events. 

Health literature appropriate to the occasion and in line with the Public Health Agency's (PHA’s) key campaigns are distributed with each sapling - bereavement and mental health information for those registering a death; breastfeeding for births; and healthy relationships and sexual health messages for marriages. 

The Life Project also matches with the PHA’s ‘Take 5 Steps to Wellbeing Initiative’ which encourages the public to connect with each other, be active, take notice of the beauty around us, and keep learning and to do something that helps other people. 

Councillors heard that the Life Project had been exploring ways of making the programme more sustainable. 

Over the years acorn collections have been organised with primary schools throughout the Council area. These acorns are planted and tended by Council partners at NWRC (North West Regional College) and Creggan Country Park. More partners have been added in the past six months including Sow and Grow in Gransha Park and New Horizons in Strabane. 

IN PICTURES: Tree Planting Day sees 800 Oak saplings planted as part of Life Project

The event was hosted by Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Environmental Health department as part of the Life Project

Through the Life Project, tree planting days in the past year were supported in great numbers by members of the public, as well as Conservation Volunteers and Woodland Trust.

In February 2025 the Life Project planted more than 1,100 tree saplings. Approximately nine hundred saplings were planted at Bay Road Park with the assistance of 60 to 70 volunteers. 

More than two hundred saplings were planted at Sigerson’s Grounds in Ballycolman, again with the help of volunteers. This brings to over 7,000 the total number of trees planted in Council parks and green spaces thanks to the Life Project.