The politics of trees

Trees glorious trees. People can’t get enough of them. They don’t want to take care of trees, they just want to plant more and more of them.

We have so many trees not being cared for by our local council that I was utterly amazed to see volunteer do-gooders planting saplings around the village green and surrounding common land when I was out walking the spaniels the other day.

Surely they can’t want more trees not to pollard, coppice or treat for processionary moth, I thought. But perhaps I should not be surprised.

I wouldn’t say people round here are naive when it comes to land management, but I saw a tree surgeon’s van recently with the slogan ‘Every branch matters’.

If your job is to take a saw to a tree, then to get work in this corner of Surrey you have to market yourself as someone who treasures the arms of the fir babies and would not dream of cutting a limb of the proud, noble lime – not unless it was a matter of life or death, something like the equivalent of tree gangrene.

After they harrowed and topped a public meadow for the first time in years, the council had to issue a statement to residents reassuring them that these drastic measures had been unavoidable.