A conversation with Carl Rowlinson, Co-Founder of the non-profit CIC Plant One
How do you turn a personal love for trees into a movement that’s reshaping the landscape of Cornwall and the entire future of the Southwest’s biodiversity?
For Carl Rowlinson, Co-Founder of the non-profit CIC Plant One, it began high up in the branches of the trees he had always loved and felt a deep connection to.
Fifteen years spent climbing, pruning and protecting ancient trees as an Arborist left Carl with a deep, unshakable respect for these living giants, and a growing frustration at how often they were cut down for convenience.
A wake-up call on the Cornish coast
That respect grew into a sense of responsibility when Carl looked more closely at Cornwall’s landscape – now one of the most heavily deforested parts of the world, with a canopy cover of just 8% compared to 13% for the UK as a whole, and 30%-40% for Europe.
“I quickly understood that we need to protect the trees we have, establish woodlands, and put trees back into our landscape,” Carl says.
It was a powerful realisation, but where do you start? The answer came in 2021, when the G7 Summit arrived in Cornwall.
Carl remembers standing on the beach, looking over to Carbis Bay and watching warships in the water and jets screaming overhead. World leaders were meeting there to discuss the future of the planet – and yet it felt far from an event that should be about galvanising people and reconnecting them to nature.
“It dawned on me then that we can’t sit back idly and wait for these decisions to trickle down and create meaningful change,” Carl recalls. This realisation hit him hard at first, but then came a simple idea: Plant some trees for himself and his friends.
The first woodland
After Carl and his friends planted 600 trees in a small paddock, there was an instant sense that they had achieved something real – something bigger than expected.
And then word spread. The neighbouring farmer asked if they could plant on his land too. There was no money left, but that wasn’t going to stop Carl. After knocking on doors to raise funds, Carl realised the initial idea had something very special to it.
“There was a will, a need, for people to connect to this work,” he says. “People want an outlet, a way to connect to the challenges of climate change. So, I thought I would roll Plant One into something much bigger, and create a way for people to access local action and local nature restoration projects.” And so he and co-founder Rai Lewis did.
Plant One takes root
From that very first paddock Plant One has only gotten bigger, and their message is both powerful and refreshingly simple: Restoring nature is open to everyone.
A message that has resonated with countless people, businesses and families. Carl may have planted the first tree, but he’s quick to emphasise that the project’s ongoing success is built by the support around Plant One. In fact, the local support and involvement is vital for their mission:
“Conservation can’t happen behind
closed gates. If we want to create
a culture shift, a mindset shift,
then we all need to play a part in it.”
“It can’t be down to a few wealthy individuals, or people working within the sector to make change,” Carl says. “If we’re going to really, really drive home the connection to our environment, and then really challenge the problems of climate change, we need to connect people back to nature.”
So while their goal is to establish 3,000 hectares of woodland across Cornwall within the next 25 years, there’s an important vision too: make woodlands culturally significant again. That means getting people involved and making them part of the solution needed for change.
The importance of accessing nature
It can sound easier said than done, but Carl reminds us that we were all much closer to nature not that long ago:
“My granddad would know every single mushroom in the woodlands. He knew the name of every tree and every bird, he knew how to snare a rabbit – and he didn’t grow up in the middle of the wilds, he grew up on the edge of Manchester,” Carl reflects.
“It’s only been within 80 years that we’ve severed that connection. All it takes is another generation to build that back. These things aren’t lost to us forever, they’re very much within reach.”
For Carl, it helps to remember, or to ask people, what their favourite tree is. Not the species, but the actual tree. For him, a beech tree in the woods near the farm where he grew up comes to mind; a childhood playground that, in memory, felt like a vast forest kingdom. However, when he returned decades later, he was struck by how small it really was – but also by how powerful those early connections had been.
“It really reiterated to me how important it is to access nature,” he says. “And how accessing nature at a young age can really instil in you a love for it for years to come.”
To Carl, doing more for our nature can be as simple as spending more time in it. “Walking through the woodlands and taking time to just sit within it while you silence your mind and silence your phone, and just drink it in.” That’s the mindset shift Carl hopes Plant One can help inspire.
“If we don’t access these important habitats then people won’t learn to love them – and if people don’t love them, we won’t be able to protect them.”
The biodiversity myth
That love, Carl points out, often starts with awareness, and there’s still a lot the public might not know about the biodiversity problems we face in the UK.
“There’s a myth that we live in a green and pleasant land, and that these rolling hills are beautiful examples of pristine countryside, with fluffy clouds of sheep grazing and farmers ploughing the fields, but the reality is different,” he says. “It’s a monocultural pastoral landscape, which removes the actual habitat and the actual biodiversity from the landscape.”
Through Plant One, Carl wants people to see that reality for themselves – and more importantly, to see that solutions exist. For him, it’s about leaving people with something meaningful and useful.
“I hope people walk away empowered, but also informed,” he says. “Informed about the challenges we face, but empowered to know that they can be part of the solution too.”
Meaningful resilience
Awareness and empowerment are strong starting points, but sustaining them enough to inspire hundreds of others takes grit. For Carl and the Plant One team, the act of staying consistent and keeping up the hard work even when it’s difficult is an inspiring type of resilience.
Carl is happy to admit that it can be overwhelming and difficult at times to stay positive and motivated, but he ties it back to that first woodland – even a small act can make big waves. “My kind of resilience when faced with the overwhelming, sometimes daunting and sometimes depressive challenge that we face, is that…”
“You may think we’re in a
losing battle, but that doesn’t
mean we should stop fighting.”
That perseverance is paying off. This summer, Carl and the team celebrated a big milestone: releasing their first woodland. “It’s moving away from being a juvenile woodland and into a semi-mature woodland – a teenage woodland, really,” he says with a laugh. The trees, now ten to twelve feet tall, are thick and strong enough to stand on their own. The guards and stakes have come off, revealing a thriving young forest ready for its next phase of life.
Accountability through tangibility
Plant One has made woodland restoration something people can experience on their own doorstep, allowing them to create change they can see, feel and follow for years to come. Something that sets them apart from many other sustainability schemes.
“One of the reasons I set up Plant One is because I saw people committing to green initiatives, but quite often this was sending money abroad, financing biodiversity projects in the global south,” Carl says. “But what I wanted to do with Plant One was to ensure that we, as a country that’s depleted in biodiversity, are spending money on our own challenges first. We should build back what we’ve sacrificed before we go to other countries.”
By doing it this way, the work and the change is tangible. Planting trees with Plant One is not a quick way to clear your conscience; it’s life-affirming community events that put the power of restoration back into your own hands. By actively participating, it’s impossible not to feel like you’re part of something – and it’s even harder not to feel inspired to keep going.
“We wanted to create accountability through tangibility,” Carl confirms. “I can show everybody that the trees they planted are growing. We can jump in the car and go have a look. It’s happening in our communities – not abroad. That connection is important.”
No Trees, No Seas
But for Carl personally, Plant One has changed more than just the Cornish landscape. It’s changed him too. “It’s made me appreciate how beautiful our native flora, fauna and fungi really are.”
This deepened sense of appreciation has fed directly into Plant One’s biggest and newest project: their No Trees, No Seas Crowdfunder campaign. It highlights how reforestation supports not only life on land, but healthy marine environments too. It’s a bold, hopeful step that widens the circle of connection even further, linking trees to ocean-health in a way most people, and even some environmentalists, have never seen before.
“The beauty in that connectedness is the almost ‘obviousness’ of it,” Carl says. “All our ecosystems are connected, but sometimes we just need to be reminded.”
And that’s the power of seeing the world the way Carl does: not as himself as the centre, but as one thread in a greater, interconnected world – a world that only thrives when every part of it is cared for.
Planting the future
What began with Carl, a few friends, and 600 trees, has grown into a movement powered by volunteers, local landowners, schools, and businesses. It’s a reminder that Carl’s belief in “if everyone does a little, it results in a lot,” holds water, and that real change doesn’t always start in conference halls or policy documents – sometimes it starts in a field with a spade in hand.
As our conversation draws to a close, Carl’s gratitude and determination shine through. He doesn’t claim the journey is easy, or that the challenges aren’t daunting, but his conviction is unshakable: Small, local acts matter. They ripple outward, they restore balance, and they create meaningful culture change as much as they create canopy cover.
Lastly, Carl leaves us with something simple, and perhaps more urgent: An invitation. Come along, get involved, plant trees. Reconnect. Because the future of our land, our seas – and all of us – depends on it.
- Connect with Carl on LinkedIn
- Support or find out more about Plant One’s No Trees No Seas Campaign
- Check out Plant One’s website and LinkedIn for updates on planting days, events, and volunteer opportunities, or info on how to join their community WhatsApp group.
