Growing trees, saving lives: Magilligan Tree Nursery

The opportunity

Magilligan Tree Nursery is built around a simple, powerful idea: long-term recovery depends on what we invest in early.

Within HMP Magilligan, people in custody are growing native Irish trees from local seed, learning skills, patience and responsibility while helping restore landscapes that will endure for generations.

For businesses, this is a rare opportunity to support both human resilience and ecological resilience through one integrated, place-based project, with tangible outcomes for nature, communities and futures.

The project

Magilligan Tree Nursery is a pioneering native tree production and social rehabilitation project, located within HMP Magilligan, on the edge of the Binevenagh AONB.

Established by Causeway Coast and Glens Heritage Trust in partnership with the Northern Ireland Prison Service, the nursery addresses two pressing challenges at once:

1. The chronic shortage of locally sourced, native trees needed for nature restoration and climate resilience across Northern Ireland, and
2. The need for meaningful rehabilitation, skills development and pathways to employment for people in custody.

Using peat-free, organic and low-impact growing methods, the nursery produces high-quality native Irish trees of local origin, suitable for woodland creation, hedgerows, riparian (riverside) planting and wider nature recovery programs.

Crucially, the nursery also delivers restorative justice in practice.

Inmates are directly involved in seed collection, propagation, and day-to-day nursery operations, gaining transferable horticultural skills, work experience and improved wellbeing, benefits that continue well beyond release.

Why this matters

For nature and resilience

Northern Ireland has some of the lowest woodland cover in Europe, and restoration efforts are frequently constrained by a lack of appropriate, disease-safe, locally adapted planting stock.

This nursery helps fill that gap by:

• Supplying native trees grown from locally collected seed, improving establishment success and biodiversity outcomes.
• Supporting nature recovery networks, woodland expansion, hedgerow restoration and riparian buffer creation.
• Reducing reliance on imported trees, which can pose biosecurity and carbon-cost risks.

By growing trees in line with UK & Ireland Sourcing Guidance (UKISG), the project directly supports best practice in climate-resilient landscape restoration.

For society and rehabilitation

The nursery’s location within HMP Magilligan makes it genuinely distinctive:

• Participants gain practical skills, routine, responsibility and confidence.
• Engagement with nature has been shown to improve mental health, wellbeing and behaviour.
• The project helps remove barriers to employment and reintegration on release, supporting long-term social value.

This is not symbolic engagement, it is structured, sustained work experience with measurable outcomes.

For community and place

Beyond the prison, the nursery connects people to nature through:

• Volunteer programmes and community group involvement.
• Workshops in tree identification and seed collection.
• Education partnerships with schools and local organisations.

The result is a place-based project that strengthens environmental understanding and stewardship across the Binevenagh AONB and wider region.

Progress so far

This is an established project which has hard various short-term sources of funding since 2022. The nursery is operational and producing trees, with demand and impact growing year-on-year.

Stable, multi-year funding will enable the project to consolidate, scale responsibly and maximise both environmental and social returns.

Corporate investment will:

• Sustain and expand annual tree production.
• Fund inmate training, supervision and skills development
• Increase community outreach, volunteering and education activity
• Strengthen Northern Ireland’s ethical supply chain for native trees

This is core funding with clear, tangible outputs and visible impact.

Key outputs

Some of these indicative outputs can be adjusted/refined based on a partner's core business focus and interests.

Inmate engagement

• ~1,200 hours of horticultural training and work experience per year.
• 20–30 inmates engaged annually.

Tree production

• 30,000–50,000 native trees grown per year (species-dependent).
• All stock peat-free, organically grown and of local provenance (origin).

Seed sourcing & biosecurity

• Seed collection sites mapped and logged across Binevenagh AONB and beyond.
• High biosecurity standards maintained.

Community & volunteer engagement

• ~400 volunteer hours annually.
• 6–10 community groups supported each year.
• Repeat engagement and skills progression tracked.

Nature restoration

• Direct supply of trees to restoration projects within Binevenagh AONB.
• Capacity to support wider AONB and regional nature recovery initiatives.

Corporate & CSR opportunities

This project offers distinctive, high-integrity CSR and ESG value, including:

Social impact & inclusion

• Direct support for rehabilitation, skills development and employability.
• Tangible contribution to reducing reoffending through positive work pathways.

Environmental leadership

• Investment in climate-positive, peat-free, organic production.
• Clear biodiversity and nature-recovery outcomes.

Employee & community engagement

• Volunteer opportunities and site visits (where appropriate).
• Participation in seed collection days and workshops.
• Education and outreach partnerships.

Storytelling & reporting

• Powerful, human-centred impact stories.
• Visible outputs: trees grown, landscapes restored, lives changed.
• Strong alignment with ESG reporting on environment, community and responsible supply chains.