‘We plant belonging’: how nature charities and asylum seekers work together in UK countryside

Asylum seekers help to clear invasive Himalyan balsam in Tŷ Mawr country park, north Wales. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Asylum seekers help to clear invasive Himalyan balsam in Tŷ Mawr country park, north Wales. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian ‘We plant belonging’: how nature charities and asylum seekers work together in UK countryside Environmental and refugee groups have joined forces to benefit lives and wildlife in Wales and elsewhere Shielding his eyes from the blinding midday sun, Abdullah, a Sudanese asylum seeker, gazes out at the expanse of green in Tŷ Mawr country park in north Wales. “This place is so beautiful,” he says. “It feels a very long way from the Home Office .” The park is on the banks of the River Dee in the Vale of Llangollen, part of an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB). Sheep, pigs, goats and chickens speckle the stunning landscape. Abdullah is part of a group of dozens of asylum seekers, refugees and environmental volunteers working together to clear invasive Himalayan balsam from the riverbanks. It’s almost 30C, but he and his fellow weeders, all wearing thick gardening gloves, keep pulling up the plants. They are determined to clear the area they’re working on before most of them must return to their asylum accommodation in Liverpool later in the day. The trip is part of a series of quarterly climate action events, the result of a partnership between the charities Action Asylum and Asylum Link Merseyside , the North Wales Wildlife Trust and the Dee Trust . It’s unusual for the refugee and environment sectors to come together in this way, but Action Asylum and its partners have developed a model that works, boosting community cohesion at a time of attacks on asylum seekers and refugees, and improving the environment for everyone – through beach cleans, tree planting and habitat restoration. Action Asylum is a national project delivered by the Task Force Trust . Since 2020, it has brought people seeking asylum and local residents together through environmental volunteering. The charity has recently secured a £1.62m funding boost from the National Lottery’s climate action fund , and over the next three years, it will roll out new environmental programmes and expand into areas such as Sheffield, Newcastle and Bolton, adding to environmental projects under way in Leeds, Stockton-on-Tees, Portsmouth and elsewhere. During that time, it will work with more than 3,000 volunteers and run 120 large-scale climate action events across England and Wales. View image in fullscreen ‘A long way from the Home Office.’ Solomon, Aliya, Abdullah and Doudou beside the River Dee. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian One of the initiative’s lead ambassadors, Jane, a refugee, said: “When you plant a tree, it does not matter who you are or where you came from. Your hands are in the soil, and you belong to the planet as a human being. We don’t just plant trees. We plant belong