It’s interesting where ecology and politics are crossing over to make new political interventions. We have long noted the power of veganism to line up “I - We - World” - personal, social and global flourishing integrated together.

Something of the same power is gathering around the presence of trees in our lives - whether it’s reforesting for carbon capture and bio-diversity, their recently discovered faculties of communication and mutual coordination, or even their increasingly valued presence in our streets and suburbs.

Particularly during Covid, and the long walks we take to fill our hours, trees have become companions, elders, magnificent presences, even symbols of a nature we should have respected much more than we have. (We have a substantial archive on arborescent politics on this site - and look out for our Xmas tree advice this week).

So it’s with a sense of real violation that we bring you this story from Doncaster, as reported in the Independent:

What could once have been referred to as a “leafy” residential road in Doncaster has seen over 60 mature and healthy trees chopped down despite local opposition, as the council has sought to repair pavements apparently affected by the large trees’ roots.

Extraordinary photographs of Middlefield Road in Bessacarr [see pictures at the head of this blog] show the impact the felling has had on the street, leaving it bare.

Months after work was halted following initial protests, after dark on Monday evening workers fenced off the four remaining trees on the road and on Tuesday began sawing them down, prompting local activists to climb the trees, and protest beneath them.

Local Green Party member and former parliamentary candidate Kate Needham was among those guarding the trees on Tuesday, and likened the situation to the infamous Sheffield tree felling protests, which became a PR disaster for Sheffield City Council.

She told The Independent over the telephone: “There’s a chainsaw in the background as we speak. We’ve been protesting for the past three weeks by sitting under the trees because the council wants to chop down all 64 trees on this road. They’ve chopped down 60 of them and there were four left as of this morning.

“Last night they came and erected fencing round the trees and they’ve come back this morning to cut the remaining four trees down.”

“We’ve been protesting this mass cutting of all the trees when they don’t appear to have tested below the surface to check whether industry standard engineering solutions may be available to repair the pavements without chopping the trees down.”

In Sheffield, a series of protests erupted in 2014 after the council similarly earmarked thousands of trees for felling if they were deemed to be damaging road or pavement surfaces or causing a hazard. The protests became national news and were ultimately successful, with the council admitting in 2019 they “got things wrong”, with a year-long investigation revealing they had “deliberately” misled the public over the tree-felling programme.

More here. How can this be better done? As in so many things local and participative, we turn to Frome council in Somerset, who have alerted us to their “Wild About Trees” policy:

We’re passionate about our trees here in Frome, whether that’s planting them or protecting them. And because of that, we’ve committed to be Wild about Trees.

We’re planning to plant thousands of trees over the coming years and you can find out more about our Wild about Trees project by reading these reports:

Wild about Trees project (September 2019) (PDF, 1.04 MB)

Wild about Trees project (November 2019) (PDF, 1MB)

The project got off to a great start, with two community planting days held over the February half-term with the specific aim of fighting climate change. Hundreds of people braved the rain and cold to plant a grand total of 1,200 whips – 500 trees in the field below the allotment site on Birchill Lane and around 700 trees at Weylands.

We planted native UK tree and shrub species including common oak, rowan, wild cherry, beech, silver birch as well as shrubs such as hawthorn and guelder rose.

More here. If you dig into the Sept 2019 PDF report above, you can see how communities are encouraged and invited to map and grade their tree scenarios, helping the council to have an overview of what leafage is needed where.

We don’t see discussions about how to maintain the presence of old trees in Frome - perhaps someone could post the policy in the comments box below.

But we do note the “daylight” conversations and actions with the community that Frome’s Wild About Trees exemplifies - as opposed to a night-time raid on a tree-lined avenue that’s unrecognisable the next day. As we try to chart in this blog daily, our affection and rights to our trees is a great example of community power - “nothing about us without us”.

Local councils can chop down the trees overnight in Doncaster…and ask the citizens to plan their foliage and foresting in Frome