Under The Canopy

A conservation initiative dedicated in the name of The Queen harnesses the global power of the Commonwealth to arrest the decline of the world’s native forests.

- Chrissie Goldrick

AN ELDERLY LADY and gentleman take a stroll through a leafy park on one of those perfect English summer days still rare enough to dominate the conversation of a nation that needs little encouragement to talk about the weather. The smartly dressed pair engages in friendly banter as they walk through the dappled shade beneath the generous spreading boughs of grand old deciduous trees. It’s a scene that might be played out right across Britain on such a day. However, it’s not so much the weather that this pair discuss as the climate – specifically the changing climate and urgent need to save the world’s native forests. For the woman is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and as she guides her guest, Sir David Attenborough, through the private gardens of Buckingham Palace they discuss a new conservation initiative bearing her name – The Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy (QCC). This engaging interaction between two of the UK’s most admired individuals captured the imagination of the country when it was broadcast last April and helped propel the relatively new conservation effort into the public eye and The Queen into a new role as environmental protagonist.

THE QCC WAS BORN out of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta in 2015. Originally the brainchild of veteran British MP Frank Field, it was apt that the idea took flight at such a forum – an assembly of world leaders from every corner of the former British Empire, now a voluntary network of countries with a common heritage and powerful collective knowledge.