To illustrate this piece I have chosen some of my favourite tree pictures.
Indeed, a UK study a few years ago concluded that easy access to green spaces for every family in the country would save the NHS an estimated £2bn to £4bn per year. The Japanese Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute concluded that 15-20 minutes in a natural environment, especially woodland related, led to a significant reduction in blood-pressure, pulse rates and cortisol levels (elevated cortisol levels are linked to stress). Meanwhile, the total impact of mental illness in England has been estimated at £105bn. In a survey for Natural England, 85% of those visiting woodlands said it made them feel calm and relaxed. In another survey, the National Forestry Commission found that 95% of people said woodlands were “places where I can relax and de-stress”. And, if the UN World Health Organisation is correct, by 2020 depression will be the 2nd most prevalent cause of ill-health worldwide.
Research also shows that 40% of people living in areas with high levels of green space are less likely to be overweight or obese. Meanwhile, in 2007 the UK government predicted that by 2050 1 in 4 under 16-year-olds would be obese, costing UK society in the region of £45bn a year.
Yet half of the UK’s ancient woodland has been lost or damaged in the past 70 years. Since 1999, 276 ancient woods have suffered loss or damage, with another 588 still under threat. Despite government promises that ancient woodland would be afforded adequate protection, currently, 85% of ancient woodland is unprotected by government legislation.
Meanwhile, the government’s own findings have made poor air quality responsible for 40,000 deaths per year. Heat-related stress accounts for about 1,100 premature deaths a year in the UK. Informed selection and strategic placement of trees and green infrastructure in cities can cool the air by between 2°C and 8°C.
According to The Charter for Trees, Woods and People an estimated 595m tonnes of CO2 is stored in UK forests, and net uptake per year is between 9m and 15m tonnes. The Committee on Climate Change’s guidelines are that abatement of CO2 is deemed cost-effective at anything less than £100 per tonne; woodlands planted for multiple objectives can additionally deliver carbon abatement at significantly less than £25 per tonne.
By providing shade for buildings they also reduce the need for air-conditioning, which must be good for the environment. You just have to walk through woodland on a hot summer’s day to experience the cooler conditions provided by the shade. Conversely, woodlands are slower to lose heat and will be warmer than the surrounding landscape when temperatures drop.
Trees also act as a windbreak and provide security around properties and prevent soil erosion.
The flooding that hit the headlines so spectacularly at the start of 2014 could be greatly alleviated by planting more trees and woods to absorb rain water. Planting trees and hedgerows has been estimated to reduce rainfall run-off by as much as 78%.
Modelling around the river Parrett in south-west England found that floodplain woodland could increase flood storage by 71%. In cities, the addition of a street tree could reduce storm water runoff by 50-62% in a 9m2 area, compared with asphalt alone, according to test plots in Manchester.
According to figures released from the Met Office, 4 of the 5 wettest years have occurred since 2000 and the wettest winter ever recorded (since records began 250 years ago) occurred in 2013/14. This is therefore a trend that is likely to continue, especially as a rise in global temperature means that there is far more moisture in the air coming off the Atlantic.
Oak is one of our most important trees when it comes to providing a richly important habitat and food source for wildlife: birds and squirrels build nests in the crown; some 280 different insects such as wasps, moths, aphids, spiders, gall mites and beetles feed upon the leaves, ivy, lichen, mosses and fungi invade the branches and bark; and birds, insects and mammals feed on the acorns.
Meanwhile, threats to trees form disease and pests continue to increase the pressure on our wildlife. For example - there are approximately 130m native ash trees at risk from ash dieback, which would also affect the myriad wildlife species associated with ash, some of which are entirely or heavily dependent on it. Why, oh why, were we importing ash trees (a tree that already grows in large numbers with no assistance from us) from a country neighbouring one (Denmark) that had lost an estimated 90% of its ash trees to dieback. It just beggars belief!
Overall, an estimated 66% of Britain’s wood demand is met through imports. This level of imports is probably not surprising when you consider that in the last century Britain lost 90% of its coppiced woodland.
The total value of UK woodlands was estimated in 2015 at about £270bn. If 250,000 hectares of woodlands were planted near to towns and cities, they would generate societal net benefits in excess of £500m a year.
Between 1991 and 2100, it is estimated that the total financial benefits of the 520 km2 (200 sq miles) of the National Forest being planted alongside ancient woodland in the Midlands will be £909m – far in excess of the estimated costs of £188m.
Meanwhile, a study in Tyneside found that being within 500m of deciduous trees added 8% to property values. And the development of community woodland on the former Bold Colliery site in St Helens is estimated to have directly enhanced property values in the surrounding area by £15m (Forestry Commission 2005).
Add to these the costs of poor physical (including respiratory) and mental health, the costs of flood damage and soil erosion, and the costs associated with climate change and you start to question why we still struggle to make the case for protecting our trees and woodlands. On purely financial grounds these figures are extremely hard to dismiss. Yet dismissed they are.
One of the most staggering things I have heard was when a prominent councillor explained that once we have fixed the economy then we can look at protecting the environment, to which my response was - a failure to look after the environment now will make the future state of the economy irrelevant.
The defence of our country depended for so long upon our navy, the anthem of which is still, ‘Hearts of Oak’. A new Elizabethan warship took approximately 2,000 mature oaks to build - equivalent to 50 acres of trees – and during Elizabeth I’s reign nearly 30,000 mature oaks, each taking approx a century to produce, were felled for this purpose alone.
Meanwhile, many rural economies where based around the highly versatile hazel. Straight poles are still commonly used for bean poles and pea sticks, and fencing and hurdle-making. Cut and split, hazel poles would have been used by thatchers, twisted and bent in half and pushed into thatch to keep it in place – the average thatched house would require about 5,000 of these spars. As far back as Tudor times, until the introduction of wire fencing, hazel would have been used to create moveable hurdle-fencing, in great demand when wool was the mainstay of the country’s wealth and foreign trade. Hazel was also used for cotton reels and salmon traps and bundles of rods were also used as ship’s fenders and were used by engineers for providing drainage beneath roads and revetment work. The brushwood was also bundled into faggots that were used for the firing of bread ovens.
Every tree type had is inherent properties (of which the above are just a few examples) and these were exploited to the full. Maybe as the availability of oil decreases and with the ability to mass produce plastics, maybe these inherent properties will once again gain in importance.
You just have to think back to the massive public outcry when the current government proposed to sell off our public woods into private ownership to see how much we relate to trees and how much they mean to us.