The Positivity Project: Episode 2
by Rebecca Hughes | Sep 29, 2026 | News & Press, Stories
Trees work on timescales we’re not really built to notice. A woodland takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years to become what we’d call ancient. Episode two of The Positivity Project follows one reforestation project across that span: from a handful of collected seeds, through a nursery of tens of thousands of saplings, to a fifteen-year-old woodland finding its feet, and on to an ancient woodland that shows where it’s all heading.
The charity behind it is Moor Trees, based in South Brent and restoring native broadleaf woodland across Dartmoor. Episode one took us to Cornwall, where Plant One are linking riverbank forests to the health of the sea below. Episode two stays with that same idea, trees as the start of something much bigger, and moves inland to see what the middle and the end of that story actually look like.
From seed to sapling
Before anything gets planted, someone has to collect the seed. Moor Trees do this themselves, gathering seed from Dartmoor’s remaining broadleaf woodland so that what gets planted back is genuinely native to the place it’s going.
From there it goes to one of the charity’s community tree nurseries, where the film finds tens of thousands of saplings growing on, ready for the next planting season. It’s the least photographed part of reforestation and one of the most important: without it, there’s nothing to plant.
Fifteen years in
The film also visits a woodland Moor Trees planted fifteen years ago. It’s not yet what most people picture when they hear “ancient woodland”, but it’s no longer a plantation either. It’s an adolescent copse, past the fragile early years and starting to behave like a proper woodland: its own understorey, its own wildlife moving in.
Where it’s all heading
The last stop is an ancient woodland, the closest thing Dartmoor has to a finished version of what today’s saplings could become. It’s there to make a point: Moor Trees’ vision is a wilder Dartmoor, with woodlands forming part of a mosaic of restored habitats that do real work against climate change and biodiversity loss, while coexisting with the farming, archaeology and recreation that already shape the moor, and reconnecting people to nature and to their own heritage.
What’s funding it
Crowdfunding has helped Moor Trees make progress towards that vision, raising tens of thousands of pounds on Crowdfunder. One of their campaigns, Breathing more life into Dartmoor: 34000 New Trees, has raised £21,035 from 111 supporters so far, with £10,000 matched by Devon Environment Foundation and £4,731 by Aviva Community Fund. The money goes on the unglamorous things that make the glamorous bit possible: compost, seed trays, staff time and volunteer transport, including a minibus from Plymouth so cost and distance aren’t the reason someone misses planting day.
More recently, at the start of 2026, they ran another project: Plant the Future with Moor Trees, where they raised £25,547 to celebrate their 25th anniversary and continue to fund their efforts and amplify their impact.
[PHOTOS: Tom’s shots of the nursery, seed collection and young woodland, plus Becca’s phone photos from the wider site, to be added]
Watch it, then help plant it
The Positivity Project exists to show what people are building when nobody’s watching. It’s also about the stories that don’t make mainstream news. This episode, that’s a charity in South Brent growing a rainforest back, one seed at a time, patiently enough to think in centuries.
Useful links
Support Moor Trees on Crowdfunder
Printed artwork in the film by Mike Langman.