It is hard to overestimate the value of trees. They are carbon sinks that keep us alive. They suck up pollution and soak up water.....
Yet, although we may profess to love trees, the UK is one of the least-wooded countries in Europe. Woodland covers just 12% of the land. What's good about trees is that you can always plant more, but we are not too good at that, either. The planting of broadleaved species (as opposed to mineral leaching fast-growing conifers) has halved over the last six years.
In the last decade 100 ancient UK woodlands have been sacrificed to development and agriculture. The Woodland Trust says we need to double our planting rate....
...While some species might be [? I think there's no doubt here] threatened by disease, the biggest threat to most trees is us. Large urban trees are particularly under siege. Too many have been felled by councils and developers, and they can take years to replace (the charity treesforcities.org helps with this).
I think about this every time I come home, as we live on a wide avenue of turkey oaks and chestnuts and the usual Surrey oaks, all over 100 years old and whenever one sickens it is cut down and not replaced. In fact, in these suburbs, trees are often regarded as a nuisance to developers, but "leafy" is used as a positive adjective for house-buyers. But a man a few doors down, angry with finding bird poo on the motor bike parked outside his house, lobbied for cutting down the mature hollyoak that harboured the offending birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment