Visitors may feel watched in the Forest of Dean in the next few weeks as the friendly faces of ‘Communitrees’ have come to help tackle the problem of littering.

Hubbub, Lucozade Ribena Suntory and other local organisations, are working together to help tackle littering in the Forest of Dean. They have created ‘Love Your Forest’ a rural anti-litter campaign designed to trial new and positive approaches to the problem of rural littering by involving the local community.

The Communitrees are part of this year’s Love Your Forest Campaign. They are a community of trees, guardians of the Forest of Dean, brought to life with faces made from litter picked from the forest floor. The friendly faces will be keeping a watchful eye on visitors to the forest, serving as a playful reminder for people to take their litter home.

People can get involved by finding all the faces in the forest to reveal a hidden message. Anyone can join the hunt by visiting Wenchford Picnic Site in Blakeney until September 10th. Pick up an activity sheet from the leaflet box in the car park at Wenchford Picnic Site or the Tourist Information Centre in Coleford, and then follow the trail to find all the Communitrees.

Love Your Forest is a series of engaging and fun activities designed to reduce the problem of littering through positive actions. The Communitrees activity follows on from the tour of the ‘Trashconverter Van’, which travelled to litter hotspots in the Forest of Dean earlier in the summer, offering rewards in exchange for litter as a nudge to more positive behaviour. The packed tour included laybys, schools, colleges and community events.

Love Your Forest has combined the forces of six different organisations and local volunteers, in a unique collaborative effort to fight the litter blight in the Forest of Dean; Hubbub, Lucozade Ribena Suntory, Forest of Dean District Council, Foresters Forest, The Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism Association and the Forestry Commission.

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