It’s International Forest Day!
NEWS
March 21st is one for the diary. At the very least, it’s a date on which we should all set aside a few moments to think about our place on this earth and what makes it possible. And what is so special about it? The 21st of March is International Day of Forests.
If you are scratching your head, literally or figuratively, as you wonder what that has to do with cutlery, or with the business end of fine dining in general, then you might just have missed the fact that at Studio William we are rather enthusiastic about trees. In fact, we name each of our ranges after a different tree!
That’s not just an aesthetic choice. Of course, trees are beautiful, and our designs are often inspired by their lines and forms. Or, sometimes, we see aspects of a particular tree in a design that is taking shape, which will then be named after the tree whose shape it echoes.
Yes, trees are beautiful, inspirational. But our homage to them is also a very deliberate environmental choice. This is born from our consciousness of the links between humanity and its needs and the earth’s forests.
From the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink to the medicines that come from trees and forests and the woods with which we build our own habitats, human beings depend on forests.
The balance of nature itself, for instance in desert and climate control, is maintained by the earth’s forests. And it now seems that the key to combatting disastrous climate change may lie, simply, in replanting enough trees, (creating enough forest), across the globe.
On the other hand, we now know that deforestation and the destruction of huge areas of some of the great forests of the earth play a huge part in the present alarming rate of species loss and endangerment while accelerating climate change, creating food shortages and depriving some of the most vulnerable peoples of the world of their habitat and resources.
All that is more than enough reason to love trees - but there’s more.
Trees are beautiful. Trees are necessary for our survival. And trees are good for the body as well as the soul!
The Japanese practise of forest bathing, shinrin-yoku, has recently gained international popularity. Forest bathing means simply being in nature, taking in the forest through the senses. It has been shown to significantly reduce resting depression, fatigue, anxiety, and confusion.
So it is easy to see why the United Nations has created a day specifically to raise awareness of the importance of forests of all kinds. It has been celebrated every year since 2012 and we think it deserves to be much more widely known, (Which is why you are reading this today!)
This year the International Day of Forests is promoting education towards helping people around the world to ‘Learn to Love Forests’.
Studio William is already there. We’d love you to join us. We don’t mean that you should go out and hug the nearest tree, (though hugging the odd tree now and again might turn out to be beneficial! But perhaps you will take a quick visit to our website and read about our support for the International Tree Foundation. And then, perhaps, you will consider joining us by supporting the ITF or some other tree planting and protecting organisation because, as we say ourselves:
To help ourselves and future generations, it only makes sense to put our efforts into undoing some of the harm caused by the plundering of trees – a vital life source – by working together to replenish the woodland we have lost.