Let’s hear it for trees!

MENDIP District Council’s Green Party councillors have set out their tree planting priorities for the area to help tackle climate change. 

Protection of big tree specimens, the protection and expansion of what is left of local woodland, and the “management of trees” to benefit the community’s physical and mental health are all on the councillors’ list of priorities. 

The councillors have spoken out in response to the government’s ‘The England Trees Action Plan 2021-2024’, which sets out the government’s long-term vision for trees, woodlands and forests in England by 2050 and beyond.  

Mendip’s Green Party councillors say, “With growing awareness of the climate and ecological emergency facing us, we are more and more conscious of the importance of trees.  

“England is one of the most tree-depleted countries in Europe with only 10% woodland cover compared with 38% across the EU and 31% across the world. We long ago cut down most of our woods to clear farmland, to build ships to create an empire and to make charcoal for the industrial revolution but now we have to do better. With the imminent loss of nearly all our Ash trees to die-back, the task is all the more urgent. 

“The government has just published ‘The England Trees Action Plan 2021-2024’, which says that local authorities will help to create a strategy for woodland and trees and should appoint a local tree officer to create partnerships, develop a woodland tree strategy and monitor the way it enriches our environment. They will also change the planning rules to make sure that all new streets are lined with trees and that trees and community orchards are integral to new developments.  

“We know that trees capture carbon dioxide as they grow but it is only mature trees with masses of leaves and a large body of timber that really do this effectively.  

“Clearly we should plant a lot of tiny saplings, but our first priority must be to protect the big specimens that are doing the heavy lifting until the youngsters can start to have an impact. 

“Our second priority must be to protect and expand what we have left of our woodland, especially our native broad-leaved woodland, which is a hugely rich and diverse ecosystem and an important part of our landscape. We need to think not just about individual trees but about protecting our richest woodlands and expanding them with all the diversity of plant and animal life that we need. 

“And the third priority must be to manage trees for our own physical and mental health. We need to see trees, especially big mature trees in urban areas, not as an inconvenience but as assets to the community and take far more care to preserve them for everybody’s benefit if we possibly can.  

“Trees are part of the richness of our living environment and if we lack trees we should see it as a significant kind of deprivation. Let us hope this little acorn of an Action Plan bears fruit and we soon see a more strategic approach to the preservation and expansion of our woodland and the way we value trees in our towns and villages across Mendip.” 

Picture: Mendip District councillor for the Cranmore, Doulting and Nunney ward, Francis Hayden, says, “Let’s hear it for the trees!”