Organisers of the first Dorset COP, taking place in Dorchester this weekend, have announced that the event will be made carbon neutral by planting native saplings at Hawkers Farm near Shaftsbury.

Jenny Morisetti, chair of Sustainable Dorset and owner of Hawkers Farm, where the trees will be planted, said: "It's important to all of us that the event itself has as low an impact as possible on the environment.

"We looked at lots of different offsetting programmes and the best in terms of low impact was planting native species on local land, that way, even our offsetting has a low impact."

Hoping to spur the local community into urgent action to combat the threats posed by climate change, leading voices from across the county will be attending Dorset's own version of the international Conference of Parties – better known as COP – to share the actions already taking place and discuss key areas of change including the circular economy, restoring nature and youth activism.

The event, led by Zero Carbon Dorset, Dorset Climate Action Network (Dorset CAN) and Sustainable Dorset has attracted plenty of attention from the media, figureheads and even celebrities with Springwatch presenter, Chris Packham, hailing the county-level COP as a "brilliant idea".

The event will be taking place on Saturday, September 9 at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester. from 9am to 5pm.