Broadsheet The Magazine for Broadland Tree Wardens Issue 181 – October 2019 A Busy0 Month Broadsheet A Busy Month The Monthly Magazine for Broadland Tree Wardens ITHOUT doubt, October is going to be a busy month Issue 181 – October 2019 for Broadland Tree Wardens. We have what are possibly the two most important dates in our calendar W Inside this issue with the East Anglian Regional Tree Wardens’ Forum on Sunday 6 October in Reedham Village Hall, followed by our A Busy Month - Editorial 1 100 Years of the Forestry Commission 4 first AGM on Wednesday 16 October in Freethorpe Village Hall. Great Trees with even Greater Burdens 5 Now, I know I’ve said it before unsustainable economy with a “planet-sized (many times before in fact), and I debt” caused by climate breakdown, the groups Call for a Million People to Plant Trees 6 said. Tree Charter Day 6 will no doubt say it again (just as Although broadly welcoming the 2050 Is the World Really Ablaze? 7 many times I guess) but if you don’t target, promised by Theresa May among the attend any other Network events final acts of her premiership, the charities said Felling of Suffolk Wood to go Ahead 8 during the year these are the two the date needed to be brought forward by Giant Trees Susceptible to 3 Killers 9 several years and that policy and funding you must make every effort to Climate Change and Forestry 10 arrangements were not yet in place. attend. In the letter, the organisations urged the 800 Years Tracked by Tree Rings 10 Details of both events have been circulated chancellor to demonstrate that he understood Veteran Tree Management Certification11 together with the Agenda for our AGM and I the gravity of the challenge by holding a climate How Forests Shaped Literary Heritage 12 urge you to encourage members of your and nature emergency budget to unleash a town/parish council to also attend. I look clean industrial revolution in Britain. New CEO for Woodland Trust 12 forward to seeing you all at both events. The letter, also signed by charities including Tree Council’s Work with Network Rail 13 October is also the month that we need to the Woodland Trust, WWF and Islamic Relief, Xylella fastidiosa Spreads to France 14 be planning our tree planting for the coming said higher state investment would encourage season. To date we have spent/allocated more private spending to bring about a low- Council “Lumbered” with £24,141 Bill 14 around £1,000 of our £3,000 budget so there is carbon economy, telling Javid: “Your Tree Planting to Off-set Carbon funding available. department holds the key to ending the UK’s Emissions 15 Let’s face it. Wherever you look or contribution to climate change and reversing Pine Marten Returns to Forest of Dean 15 whatever or whoever you listen to, we are being nature’s retreat, while also setting off a positive urged to plant trees to offset CO2 emissions. economic transformation.” Problems with Neighbouring Tree 16 Surely, as Tree Wardens, we should be leading Boris Johnson had said there would be Tree Health News and Biosecurity the way and each of us should plant some trees. greater funding for big infrastructure projects but Action 17 To date, two projects have requested without giving specific details for low-carbon Dr Jo’s Corner 18 funding from the budget so, basically, two Tree schemes. Polling carried out for the charities by Wardens will be responsible for planting a Opinium found a majority of people want Correspondence 19 hundred trees each. All credit to them. ministers to spend more on the climate Current Works to Trees Subject to a However, we need more. emergency and nature more broadly. Tree Preservation Order and Section So come on. Surely we can all find space Among the priorities put forward by the 211 Notifications for Works to Trees enough to plant one tree. Of course, a hundred groups are an £11.6bn expansion in transport Within Conservation Areas 20 or so would be better! spending, including a UK-wide car scrappage scheme to remove heavily-polluting vehicles RITAIN’S biggest environ- from the roads. mental groups have warned As much as £2.6bn per year should be spent on rewilding projects and other land This Month’s Cover Picture B the government that funding management schemes, billions should be The Great Plane in the grounds of the to tackle the climate emergency ploughed into buildings and industry to boost National Trust’s Mottisfont Abbey in the Test must be more than double next environmental sustainability, while more funding Valley in Hampshire. The tree dates from year to avoid an even greater cost should be given to help communities disrupted by the transition to a low-carbon economy. about 1725 and is thought to be the largest from catastrophic ecological of its kind in Britain. If you haven’t visited John Sauven, an economist and executive breakdown in the future. director of Greenpeace UK, said: “No one in Mottisfont I can definitely recommend it. Writing to the chancellor, Sajid Javid, as he government is still trying to argue that this is not prepared to announce his spending priorities for an emergency, and yet no one in government is the year ahead, more than a dozen leading acting as though it is. environment charities, including Greenpeace “We are still constantly pumping carbon into Broadsheet is written and published by and Friends of the Earth as well as other leading the atmosphere, and trying to ignore the John Fleetwood, Freethorpe and Wickhampton Tree Warden. organisations such as Oxfam and Christian Aid, problem will leave our children with a damaged 4 Oakhill, Brundall, NR13 5AQ. said urgent action was required to raise world and a planet-sized debt. There’s a strong Home 01603 716297 spending. economic case and an overwhelming moral Mobile 07555 535741 Spelling out their demands in a costed imperative for the chancellor to act.” E-mail [email protected] roadmap for meeting the climate emergency, the groups said that government spending REES and woodlands must be It is circulated free of charge to Broadland needed to increase from roughly £17bn a year Tree Wardens parish and town councils, at the forefront of Govern- at present to at least £42bn over the next three parish meetings and other interested parties. ment thinking when tackling years. Further increases would be required in T Any views expressed are not necessarily the future should the government wish to meet the climate emergency and the time those of the Broadland Tree Warden Network. its promise of net zero carbon emissions by for action is now was the message 2050. from experts at the Confor Wood- All copyrights are acknowledged. Failure to deliver the bold rise in expend- iture, equivalent to about 2% of economic out- land Show at Longleat. put each year and around 5% of total state Guy Shrubsole, of Friends of the Earth, said spending, would mean passing on an at the event: “We need the Government to step 1 up. We doubled forest cover in the last century protect the region. Environmentalists say his request is just common sense.” and it’s time to re-discover that vision, and do policies have led to an increase in fires this year that again to tackle the ecological and climate and that he has encouraged cattle farmers to HAT was the good news. Now emergency.” clear vast swathes of the rainforest since his for the bad! It appears that The Confor Woodland Show focused on election last October. how to increase forest cover significantly to Bolivia has also seen fires rage across the T what the Environment make a real difference in charting the UK’s path forest near its borders with Brazil and Paraguay. Secretary said didn’t tell the whole to net-zero emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, Brazil's leading meat export story. I know that is most unusual Confor’s Dr Eleanor Harris said: “These new industry group and agricultural businesses have for a politician but it’s a fact. woodlands will be delivering low carbon joined an environmental campaign calling for an Last month, villagers in Buckinghamshire construction material by 2050. When we create end to deforestation in public lands in the staged a protest over plans to clear hundreds of new woodlands, we aren’t just planting trees, Amazon and demanding government action. acres of trees and shrubs to make way for HS2. what we are really planting is optimism, hope Several international retailers have said The work is due to begin this month to make way and excitement.” they are suspending purchases of Brazilian for the £88 billion railway line. The Committee on Climate Change has leather because of the links between cattle As reported in the preceding section of this called tree planting a “simple, low-cost option” to ranching and the fires devastating parts of the editorial, the government had previously said remove carbon from the atmosphere – part of a Amazon rainforest. work to remove ancient woodland would be mounting body of evidence that says tree stopped until a review of the project was planting and timber construction must play a complete. greater role in mitigating the damaging effects of Physics However, HS2 Ltd, the company behind the climate change. construction, said that the woods near Steeple In England last year only 1,420 hectares of 1.1. History Claydon in Aylesbury Vale are not considered new woodland were created, 71% short of the Aristotle said a bunch of stuff that was ancient.