On the 8th June 2021, I’ll be setting off from Land’s End for a very long bike ride, arriving in John O’Groats some 12 days and 960 miles later. Just for good measure, there’s 44,806 feet of ascent to be tackled along the way, or over 1.5x the height of Mount Everest.

I’m riding to raise funding for Mbedza Projects Support, specifically for tree planting.

Why plant trees? We are all affected by the climate emergency, caused - if you follow the science - by greenhouse gas emissions associated with our lifestyles. Planting trees is a very efficient way to sequester carbon and offset or even mitigate our carbon footprint. It’s a way to something good for the earth.

Why plant trees in Malawi? Unfortunately, Malawi is becoming deforested and needs help to reverse this process. It’s a poor country. According to International Monetary Fund data, amongst the 10 poorest nations in the world (all ten are found in Africa). Wood fuel is used for cooking in 90% of households, deforestation is therefore devastating. Malawi is also greatly suffering from the effects of climate change, which makes crop production unpredictable.

So that’s the proposition; people in Malawi get much-needed trees which they manage as a sustainable resource. The planting of trees also helps restore their natural ecosystems. At the same time, their supporters get to offset their carbon footprint. Win, win. At £1 a tree, it’s a project anyone can get participate in. 

To give you some idea of scale, in the areas it’s working, Mbedza provides each household with 20 trees. A village wood lot is at least 250 trees (the smallest planted to date). Based on World Bank numbers, to offset the average Westerner’s footprint from 2012 - 2016 would require 380 trees to be planted today. In five years' time, those trees would have removed around 33 tonnes of carbon from the environment. Currently, Mbedza has projects on hold for the lack of £30,000 in funding lost due to UK Government cut-backs in aid.

So you know, I’m paying for the bike riding adventure; every £1 raised is paid directly to Mbedza Projects Support. Mbedza works on sound development principles; its only paid workers are Malawians and based in Malawi.

Mbedza works with local communities in Malawi, supporting tree planting as well as the provision of fuel-efficient stoves. To find out more, visit - https://mpsmalawi.org/our-mission

I’m embarking on this adventure to commemorate my Father who passed from this world in 2018. In life, he’d been a competitive sportsman, winning trophies for golf as well as medals for cricket, hockey and football. As a young man, he’d ridden his bike from the South East to the South West corners of England for a Cornish holiday. How long he stayed there or how he got back are lost details. However, I think he would have approved of this challenge.