SOCOTEC Donates Trees to Paradise Wildlife Park

After being tasked with the mission of planting trees for the Green Canopy Project in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, a group of SOCOTEC’s apprentices based in the southeast worked together to coordinate the donation of sapling trees. The team included Ellie Finnegan, Ismail Akbar and Ethan Barton, whom all began their apprenticeship programs with SOCOTEC in 2021.

Following some extensive research into various possible sites, the team chose to work with the Paradise Wildlife Park in Broxbourne, near Epping Forest. The team chose to work with the wildlife park due to their passion for the conservation, preservation and education of wildlife. Established over 50 years ago, the wildlife park has undergone extensive development. With support from companies like SOCOTEC, the wildlife park strives to achieve its purpose to educate and entertain.

Sonny Edwards, operations director, SOCOTEC UK, supported Ismail, Ellie, and Ethan to work directly with staff at the wildlife park. The team successfully organised the delivery of the sapling trees and visited the park to help plant the trees close to their popular lion enclosure, where a plaque will also be displayed.

Sonny has since been in contact to thank the wildlife park for their assistance in the apprentices’ development and has discussed potential opportunities for a partnership with them and their sister zoo, The Big Cat Sanctuary in Kent.

Speaking about their experience, Ellie, Ethan and Ismail said, “We felt this project was a great opportunity to help the environment and raise awareness of the wildlife park. We believe that the project also helped develop our communication skills through liaising with a range of different teams across different departments and companies. We also gained a vast amount of knowledge regarding various considerations such as risk assessments on site, acceptable content for social media posts and even the type of trees to plant depending on the season.  Overall, this project was a great learning experience for us and we hope our actions inspire others to do the same.”