Recently a friend of mine exclaimed that China gets through 80 billion disposable chopsticks a year.  This is enough to fill Tiananmen Square three times over.  With a population of 1.4 billion, the demand for these utensils is eating away at China’s forests, at a staggering rate.  China's natural forest resources are extremely limited (139th in the world); despite this, 3.8 million trees a year are being cut down - that is, about 100 acres every 24 hours. This deforestation is having knock-on environmental effects, causing landslides, flooding and leading to climate change.  One of the contributors to forest over-exploitation is the demand for disposable chopsticks.  The situation is not looking any more promising as the uptake for Asian cuisine is becoming more common across the globe. Read more...

Brighton in Sussex is home to Britain’s largest population of Elm trees. These 19,000 elm trees are known as The National Collection. Elm trees are increasingly rare due to the blight brought by Dutch Elm disease principally in the 1970s.  Initially this came into the UK as long ago as 1926.  Dutch Elm disease is a fungus carried by beetles and affects only elm trees. In response to this attack, an elm tree will automatically produce tyloses, an effective natural defence against the 1926 strain of Dutch Elm disease. Tyloses occur in the xylem - water conducting vessels of the plant / tree, sealing them off and restricting the movement of the pathogen. However in the early 1970's,  a new strain of Dutch Elm disease was imported from channel ports, linked directly to the Canadian Rock Elm. This strain travels faster through the elm trees and kills them before they can produce tyloses. Since the introduction of this strain of Dutch Elm disease to Britain, the number of elm trees has gone down from about 3 million to fewer than 200,000 and many of these are very young ones which will certainly succumb to the disease. Elm trees reproduce by root stalks more often than by seed and so this transmission mechanism quickly spreads the disease between elm trees and along elm hedgerows. Read more...

This is not a book filled with impenetrable botanical terminology and nomenclature, nor is it  a “coffee table” tome.  It is far more readable and useful than such texts.  It is written by Edward Milner, who has a strong background in ecology and natural history and consequently he addresses the biology, history,management, ecology, and uses of our native trees *. Read more...

On 16th October 1987, the Great Storm took away many mature trees from the landscape of southeast England, a great swathe of destruction was wreaked on our woodland and parkland trees.  Many trees and overlarge coppice still lie where they fell, the coppice more often than not growing up again but from a much larger base.  The mature trees have been gradually rotting. All the resources locked up in the wood being released and taken up by bacteria, fungi, invertebrates and so to higher organisms.  It was a major ecological disturbance,  that in some ways has been of considerable benefit to wildlife. Read more...

The Tree Council’s annual tree weeks have been an undoubted success, emanating from the 1973  “Plant a tree in ’73” campaign (some rather cynical individuals chanted “cut it down in ’74”) and must have resulted in not only in promoting the whole idea of trees but in planting many thousands across the country in parks, gardens, roadsides, corners of farmland and development sites to name but a few.  The Tree Coucil ( http://www.treecouncil.org.uk) is our foremost campaigner and umbrella body for UK organisations involved in tree planting, care and conservation. Forestry and woodlands are a long-term business but those of us planting in ’73 can see the fruits of our labours: we stand back and look up at the hornbeam, hazel, hawthorn and fieldmaple spreading wide and high;  the oak, ash, beech and birch are trees, a miraculous metamorphosis from those tiny whips planted during the cold winter months – it seems like yesterday.  We plant for the next generation but once established trees grow quickly so we can all enjoy watching them develop. Read more...

For those wanting to follow up on the different forms of wildlife in their woodland, the following organisations / societies might be of interest / use.  For each there is a link and a snippet from the organisation's website. Website of the British Arachnological Society (wiki.britishspiders.org.uk). "Here you can find information on those fascinating animals, arachnids. Our emphasis is on British spiders but we don't exclude other arachnids such as Harvestmen (opilionids), Pseudoscorpions and Scorpions". Read more...

Many people have been following the various blogs (and contributing comments) on the problems that Horse Chestnut trees have faced over these last few years.  These problems include :- bleeding canker leaf blotch fungus leaf miner moth The horse chestnut leaf miner moth, which originated in the Balkans, first appeared here in 2002/3 in the South East, but it has since rapidly spread to many areas of the U.K. Read more...

The Nature Conservancy Council commissioned the National Vegetation Classification in 1975.  Its aim was to provide a clear and systematic catalogue / description of the many plant communities of the United Kingdom.  After many years of work, a five volume account of the Classification of the National Vegetation was produced by Cambridge University Press. Woodlands and scrub Mires and heaths Grassland and montane vegetation Aquatic swamps and tall herb fens Maritime communities and vegetation of open habitats. Details of the methodology and sampling techniques can be found here Read more...