Celebrating our oaks - Award winning photography exhibition at Belvoir Park Forest, Belfast

Date published: 6 June 2019

‘Celebrating Our Oaks’ was a special category in the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) competition. This category was developed in partnership with Action Oak, a major conservation campaign whose aim is to protect the UK’s 121 million oak trees from threats, including pests and diseases, and raise £15million for research and monitoring to help safeguard the 121 million oaks in UK woodland.

This free exhibition, supported by Forest Service, will showcase photographs from the IGPOTY competition finalists. This, in a setting such as Belvoir Park Forest, highlights the importance of oak as an icon of longevity, and the important part it plays in the biodiversity and landscape of our environment. This forest boasts what is believed to be the oldest living oak in Ireland, 500 to 600 years old, dating back to the 1500s, as well as many veteran oaks, and so Belvoir Park Forest is the perfect backdrop for this display.

A hardback book, titled ‘Celebrating Our Oaks’, foreworded by Dame Judi Dench, is available to buy on the Woodland Trust website.