Plans for the forest will be created with love and remembrance for those we have lost; and built on principles of sustainability, accessibility, and education to benefit future generations. All the deep rooted values will be supported by use of unique technology, whilst still maintaining peace and tranquillity with the forests.
The roots of the Forest
REMEMBRANCE
The Forest of Memories wants to remember the 152k+ loved ones lost across the UK because of Covid-19. This initiative was founded because the media and government were taking all emotion out of the pandemic, reporting the deaths as just statistics. We felt this wasn’t right, they were real people with real lives and each left behind their own stories, friends, families and communities. The Forest of Memories will offer a place of tranquillity, peace and reflection to keep a person’s memory alive and aid our nation’s recovery.
Honour a loved one by sharing a life a for a life
SUSTAINABILITY
A forest of woodland helps to fight global warming, it removes carbon dioxide from the air and soil, it captures rain water to prevent flooding and critically it releases oxygen into our atmosphere that helps us breathe.
Using relationship with The Woodland Trust and Forestry Research we will correctly plan forest design and management, this will provide not only a healthy variety of native trees but also natural habitat to thousands of species of animals and insects. To extend this we will create spaces that promote biodiversity using wild meadows, flora, forna, and more established blossom trees to invite wildlife to the Forest of Memories.
ACCESSIBILITY
Of the Covid fatalities 59.5% are reported to have been from disabled and vulnerable groups. Our aim is to make The Forest of Memories truly accessible for all; providing walkway design that is suitable for wheelchairs, mobility and pram access in a way that doesn’t offend the landscape or people’s sensibilities, use material that complements the surroundings and doesn’t contradict the environmental message that underlies the forest.
To explore this further we are utilising our unique technology to compliment the forest and provide accessibility of information remotely and throughout the woodland in a non-invasive way that provides knowledge irrespective of the users age, language or whether they have hearing or vision impaired needs.
EDUCATION
Keeping memories of individuals alive and shared within The Forest of Memories will act as a permanent commentary of the pandemic and it will be designed to allow people to learn about not only who those individuals were in life but also about other societal issues that affect everyone at a humanitarian level.
Through the Groves of Reflection visitors will explore themes such as Mental Health, Poverty, Homelessness, The Environment, and loss.
These will be the first and only interactive forests that openly encourages engagement with the landscape by using the surrounding environment and cutting edge mobile technology.
TECHNOLOGY
We live in a digital society and what better way to reflect this juxtaposition than by communicating with new and older generations using Technology to support the roots and purpose of The Forest of Memories. Unique mobile technology will be used to share knowledge and bring a new exciting dimension to the Roots of the forest, the groves and the remembrance of those taken too soon through the Memory-Trees.com platform.
The app will support the Forest Roots and benefit many visitors providing accessibility for both vision and hearing impaired persons, but moreover, provide an enhanced interactive experience for all. It will, of course, be unobtrusive and not impact the goals of tranquillity, peace and reflection at the heart of The Forest of Memories.