{"id":289963,"date":"2026-02-18T13:07:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289963\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T13:07:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:07:07","slug":"devon-tree-planting-project-aims-to-clean-up-river-erme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289963\/","title":{"rendered":"Devon tree\u2011planting project aims to clean up River Erme"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The tree-planting is part of a <a href=\"https:\/\/englandscommunityforests.org.uk\/\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">community forests project , external<\/a>funded by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to &#8220;enhance and enrich the environment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ramsland Farm is being converted to organic but ecologist Robbie Phillips, who is leading the tree planting, said even farms that do not use pesticides and artificial fertilisers struggle with run-off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These fields have still got stock in, so when there&#8217;s extreme rainfall events, which are becoming more common, the trees will capture some of that loose sediment and soil, filter out some nutrients and then ensure that what ends up flowing through to the river courses is actually nice and clean water,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There are about 30 species of mostly native trees going in and 25 different fruit and nut varieties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It might take quite a few years but hopefully there&#8217;ll be walnuts coming off this farm within 10 years,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If you can create something that&#8217;s both a solution to a problem but also an additional enhancement on the farm then that&#8217;s where you&#8217;re really winning.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The tree-planting is part of a community forests project , externalfunded by the Department for Environment Food and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-289963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}