The Anglican Consultative Council has called for every diocese across the Anglican Communion to have an expression of the Communion Forest by August 2028. At ACC-19 in Belfast, stories from Vanuatu, Ireland, Mozambique and beyond showed the extraordinary variety of what that vision can look like in practice.
What would it look like for every diocese across the Anglican Communion to have its own expression of the Communion Forest?
At the nineteenth meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-19) in Belfast, members encountered many possible answers.
- It could look like native trees planted to mark confirmations in Ireland.
- A Church speaking up for a polluted lake.
- Seedlings distributed at Pentecost in Vanuatu.
- A sacred forest protected as a place of prayer.
- Mangroves being restored on the coast of Mozambique.
- Or it could begin with something as simple as one person planting and caring for one plant.
At ACC-19, the Anglican Consultative Council gave formal backing to the Communion Forest’s vision, passing a resolution which calls on Member Churches to encourage every diocese of the Anglican Communion to have an expression of the Communion Forest by August 2028.
The ambition fits naturally with the Communion Forest’s character. Launched at the 2022 Lambeth Conference, the Communion Forest is not one centrally directed planting programme. It brings together locally chosen activities to conserve, protect and restore forests and other ecosystems, grow trees and embed care for creation into the life of the Church. Those activities can be practical, advocacy-based or spiritual – and ideally combine all three.
The ACC resolution also embraces the emerging One Anglican, One Plant idea: a wonderfully simple invitation for individual Anglicans to become part of this worldwide movement of creation care. A shared calling across the Communion.
The resolution agreed by ACC-19 reads in full:
The Anglican Consultative Council:
- Requests Member Churches to encourage every diocese of the Communion to have an expression of the Communion Forest by August 2028, whether practical, spiritual, advocacy-based or a combination of these;
- Invites Anglicans across the Communion to take part in this shared calling through prayer, advocacy and practical action, including through the simple challenge of One Anglican, One Plant and, where possible, one act of care for creation, as a sign of commitment to the flourishing of God’s creation;
- Invites Anglicans across the Communion to advocate for the restoration and protection of the Lungs of the Earth; and
- Asks Member Churches to collaborate with the Anglican Alliance, the Anglican Communion EnvironmentalNetwork and other partners to support churches in caring for creation, protecting biodiversity, restoring ecosystems, and promoting climate justice.
Read the ACC-19 resolutions on the Anglican Communion website
It is an ambitious invitation. But the stories present in Belfast demonstrated that no diocese has to begin with a grand or complicated project. In fact, one of the strengths of the Communion Forest is that it does not necessarily have to look like a forest at all.
Bringing a worldwide forest to Belfast
That diversity was vividly on display at ACC-19. Stories of creation care from across the Anglican Communion filled the pages of the new A to Z of the Communion Forest. Hard copies were brought to Belfast to give away and proved popular with ACC members. The Communion Forest was also showcased through an exhibition as part of the Anglican Alliance’s presence at the gathering. The A to Z describes the Communion Forest as a global initiative made up of local activities undertaken by individuals, parishes, dioceses and provinces. Activities are chosen locally so that they are geographically, culturally and ecologically appropriate. But in Belfast something particularly lovely happened: some of the people behind the stories in the A to Z were there too. The pages and the people came together.
From Vanuatu: living with the forest
One of them was Ethel George, Women’s Desk Officer for the Anglican Church of Melanesia, who spoke during ACC-19’s Environment Global Conversation. Ethel brought to the gathering the perspective of Vanuatu, where the relationship between people and the natural world is immediate and profound. For communities in tropical island nations, she explained, forests and trees are part of everyday life: providing food, healing and shelter. Yet the very familiarity of these gifts can mean they are taken for granted. She described how the Communion Forest is helping to rekindle intentional care for creation within the Church of Melanesia. Ethel herself appears in the A to Z. On North Pentecost Island, she delivered tree seedlings to local leaders as part of the Communion Forest initiative – fittingly, during Pentecost. The booklet describes it as a blending of faith, community and creation care.
Another Vanuatu story shows just how broad an “expression of the Communion Forest” can be. The Melanesian Brotherhood is creating the Tumsisiro Communion Forest Conservation Area on Ambae: a sacred space bringing together environmental protection, prayer and reflection. The forest offers Brothers and visitors a place to encounter God through nature and to understand the environment itself as a holy altar. Brother Chris SSF, one of the leading lights in the Communion Forest initiative, was also at ACC-19 – another reminder that this global forest is being nurtured through relationships between people and communities across the Communion.
From Ireland: confirmations, trees – and water
Bishop-elect of Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross Andrew Orr brought a different perspective to the Environment Global Conversation – this time from the country hosting ACC-19. Ireland is one of the least wooded countries in Europe. In the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, that reality prompted an imaginative response: connecting confirmation with the restoration of native woodland. Working with Reforest Nation, the diocese has around five native Irish broadleaf trees planted for every confirmation candidate. Each person confirmed also receives native wildflower seeds, a certificate and a badge – connecting an important moment in their Christian journey with the Fifth Mark of Mission and the calling to care for creation.
Andrew was instrumental in developing this approach. But the diocese’s engagement with creation care has continued to grow – and to demonstrate why the word Forest in Communion Forest encompasses much more than trees. The diocese is now also involved in protecting lakes and freshwater ecosystems. During the environment session, Andrew spoke powerfully about the degradation of Ireland’s waterways and about the responsibility of churches to use their voices for creation. That movement – from planting trees to protecting water – captures something important about the Communion Forest vision. The aim is not simply to increase the number of trees planted. It is to help creation care take root in Christian discipleship and then grow in whatever ways are appropriate to the local environment.
From Mozambique: finding your story in the forest
There was another joyful encounter between the A to Z and one of its subjects in Belfast. Bishop Emmanuel Capeta of the Diocese of Inhambane in Mozambique was at ACC-19 – and was thrilled to discover his own Communion Forest story in its pages. His diocese is restoring the mangrove forest near Inhambane Bay in Maxixe, where years of cutting for fuel, building materials and farming had damaged a once-thriving ecosystem. Led by Bishop Emmanuel, the Venerable Aurélio Uqueio, Green Anglicans and 48 young people, church members have planted 530 mangrove seedlings with support from local communities and the municipal government.
Restoring those mangroves means far more than planting trees. The project helps protect the coastline, support marine life and food security, purify water and store carbon. Rooted in prayer as well as practical action, it is a locally meaningful response to the call to care for creation. Bishop Emmanuel’s delight at finding the story in the A to Z was a small but telling moment. The Communion Forest exists not only to encourage new action but also to connect, celebrate and inspire – making visible the extraordinary creation-care work already happening across the Anglican Communion so that churches can learn from and encourage one another. A local project in Mozambique becomes part of a global story. And perhaps somebody reading about it in another part of the world begins to wonder: what could we do here?
Prayer, action and advocacy
The Environment Global Conversation at ACC-19 helped connect those local stories with the bigger theological and global picture. Bishop Graham Usher, another leading light in the Communion Forest and the Anglican Communion’s lead bishop on biodiversity, was among those contributing to the conversation. His involvement illustrates another dimension of the Communion Forest: advocacy. The A to Z recalls his participation in the UN Convention on Biodiversity alongside Communion Forest Global Facilitator Nicholas Pande. As Nicholas puts it, practical action through the Communion Forest gives credibility to Anglican advocacy: the Church is not simply telling others what to do, but is itself “planting, restoring and protecting creation”. That relationship between action and advocacy is reflected directly in the ACC resolution, with its invitation to Anglicans to advocate for the restoration and protection of the planet’s “Lungs of the Earth”. The Communion Forest can therefore take root at many levels: in the life of an individual disciple, in the worship of a parish, in the environmental choices of a diocese and in the Church’s public voice to governments and international institutions.
From a vision to a shared calling
The Communion Forest has always been an invitation rather than a prescription. Its vision is of Anglicans everywhere finding locally appropriate ways to conserve, protect and restore creation – whether through practical action, prayer and spirituality, advocacy, or a combination of all three. ACC-19 has now added the formal backing of the Anglican Consultative Council to that vision. And the stories encountered in Belfast showed just how varied the response can be.
- In Vanuatu, it can be seedlings distributed at Pentecost and a sacred forest protected for prayer.
- In Ireland, it can be native trees planted for confirmation candidates – and a Church finding its voice for threatened waters.
- In Mozambique, it can be young people restoring mangroves that sustain both human and marine communities.
Alongside the ambition of an expression of the Communion Forest in every diocese by August 2028 comes an invitation simple enough for any Anglican to embrace: One Anglican, One Plant – and, where possible, one act of care for creation. The A to Z taken to Belfast already tells stories stretching across the Anglican Communion. It reflects an initiative that is becoming extraordinarily geographically widespread and ecologically diverse. But the A to Z is a snapshot, not a finished story. The ACC resolution invites every diocese – and every Anglican – to imagine what their own contribution might be. A seedling can be a beginning. So can a confirmation. A mangrove. A threatened lake. A piece of forest recognised as sacred. A church finding its voice.
Taken separately, they may seem small.
Together, they are becoming a forest.