[Music]
who feels that they already have an
important relationship with trees
something that’s important in their
lives
that’s good look at that I say about
two-thirds of the room so we’ll try and
make that 100% by the end but that’s
really good to see so the tree that
you’re looking at now is more than 1,400
years old estimates place at about 2,500
years old
it’s a new tree it’s no wonder that our
pagan ancestors used to worship these
they seem to be immortal in fact
scientifically we now know they kind of
are immortal because unlike other tree’s
who hollow out as they age and
eventually decay you tree sucker up new
growth from the same root system so when
the original tree trunk eventually
decays away you’ve got a new growth that
is still the same tree so really
incredible scientific facts about this
tree but also it has been bound into our
mythology for millennia
now 2500 years old you know that’s quite
a long time certainly in terms of our
history of our civilization but in terms
of our relationship with trees this is
just a blink of an eye now some of you
will know which tree this is it’s not
the oldest you in the UK the oldest view
is actually in Wales the port and
girl.you which is estimated to be about
9,000 years old but this is historically
important because this is the anchor
with you and 800 years ago this
witnessed the signing of the Magna Carta
in 1215 so I thought it seemed like a
good link with the past and with trees
but as I say 2500 years old the blink of
an eye because our relationship with
trees goes all the way back what you’re
looking at now is a carved wooden spear
it’s also made from new woods the same
tree as the anchor wick you this is four
hundred and fifty thousand years old
four hundred and fifty thousand years
old that takes us back through three Ice
Ages when this was mislaid and what is
now Clapton upon see auspicious Liana
now this is the oldest known man-made
wooden object but of course it takes
pretty special conditions for a man-made
wouldn’t object to last hundreds of
thousands of years so our relationship
with wood carving probably goes back a
hell of
further than this and we know our
relationship with trees goes much
further back it goes back to the dawn of
our species because of course our
distant ancestors lived in trees we took
our shelter and we forest for our food
directly from the trees in which we
lived and as we evolved as a species our
relationship with trees also evolved and
so we started by taking our shelter and
our food directly from trees and then of
course we became a little bit more
advanced we started to create tools like
that sphere to be able to get our food
from other sources we started to build
our own shelters from the wood that came
from trees we started to heat our selves
with fire from which we which we created
by burning wood from trees again and
throughout the millennia that followed
we have continued to consistently depend
upon trees and to build this
relationship it has changed as we have
changed but it has always been integral
to our survival and so the landscape
around us is shaped by the ways that we
have used trees the ways that we have
depended upon trees but also we as a
species have been shaped by this
relationship when a life-form evolves it
evolves in certain conditions you think
how we evolved to breathe the atmosphere
of the planet on which we live take away
oxygen we don’t do very well and of
course we know that oxygen itself is one
of the things that trees helps us out
with so do we have a relationship like
that with trees that is that integral
ever since we were you know walking
around for the first time we felt the
need to have trees in our lives and
we’ve depended on them but have we
outgrown that have we evolved beyond our
need for trees so we still use wood wood
is still a very important resource for
us but we do have alternatives we can
create artificial materials none as
versatile as wood none that are
sustainable to produce as planting a
tree and then waiting 40 or 50 years but
we could get by without wood you might
argue a lot of people would say there is
no material that is
pleasant to work with as beautiful but
we could get by without it oxygen can’t
really get by without oxygen but there
are other things that create that for us
and we could even create artificial ways
to do that so are we looking at
something that is more ingrained
something that’s more hardwired into us
as as a species as human beings because
this is the oldest interspecies
relationship that we have ever had long
before we domesticated dogs and horses
long before we kept livestock we were
working with trees and we were depending
on them science would suggest there is
we know through scientific studies that
being out amongst trees is good for us
it’s good for our bodies and our minds
and that’s not just because if you’re
out around trees you’re probably outside
breathing fresh air and doing exercise
it’s all of the sensory inputs that we
get from trees and woods so siddur ism I
love that word which is the sound of
wind in the leaves of trees
birdsong which you wouldn’t get without
somewhere for birds to nest these things
actually have a direct impact on our
brain activity making us more able to
deal with stress more relaxed happier
and take away some of those sensory
inputs trees are still delivering for us
if you have a view of trees from your
window whether it’s your window at home
or your classroom or your office you are
more more likely to be able to deal with
stressful situations you’re going to be
more relaxed you’re going to be happier
it’s been shown that students in
classrooms where they have a view of
trees are better behaved and find it
easier to concentrate where Ward’s of
hospitals have a view of trees it’s been
shown that people recover quicker this
is a incredibly ingrained benefit that
trees can bring to us and these studies
are out there so do search for them I
haven’t got time to go through the stats
and it’s even been shown but a picture
of a tree in a frame or on a screen is
better than not having any tree in view
at all so you’re welcome
and to take that one step further if you
are in a room with nothing made of wood
there’s actually very little wood
surface in this room and or if you’re
too high in a building to be able to see
the canopy of the trees around you
having wood around you wooden furniture
wooden surfaces that haven’t been
painted wooden doors even that makes
that environment more conducive to your
mental health so we are hardwired to
depend on our relationship with trees
and woods so one you mull that over
we’ll think about modern society now how
would we do without trees in our lives
then we know that if we took away oxygen
we don’t do very well what about trees
well we’ve never really certainly in
this part of the world had any reason to
suspect that we would have any
experience of this in our lifetimes
until now for the first time in our very
very long history as a species we’re in
a situation where some people are
disconnected from trees to the extent
that they could go through their daily
lives their working lives and even their
whole lives without having this
integrated relationship with trees and
that really is our first certainly in
the UK and this part of the world and do
we know what that’s going to do to us we
don’t because that hasn’t happened
before
but those scientific studies suggest it
probably isn’t going to be great but
with the increased urbanization and with
the digital culture and changing work
practices this is now the situation that
we find ourselves in a generation is
being is coming up into society and
unless they seek out time amongst trees
it is possible for them to completely
lose that relationship and this is a
spiral potentially because if you think
about it if you’ve got a young
generation that don’t experience the
benefits of spending time with trees
they don’t know what those benefits are
they’ve got no reason to try and seek
them out what you don’t know about
you’re also not going to stand up to
protect
so if trees and woods are under threat
in the future or if our access to the
benefits that they bring is under threat
we rely on the generation that follows
to be willing to stand up and and say we
need this it’s important to us and that
really is under threat so has it ever
been under threat before well to go back
800 years again to the signing of the
Magna Carta at that time people’s
everyday lives were dependent on the
trees and woods and the landscapes
around them people would go and collect
their firewood to heat their homes from
their local wood and if they had a herd
of pigs which was you know often the way
that freemen would make their living
they took them into the wood to feed on
acorns and beech nuts so collecting
firewood was called s Stover one of
these great historical words that isn’t
used much anymore and keeping pigs is
panitch taking them in knocking acorns
off trees which is what’s happening here
so that they can feed it’s great winter
fodder for pigs now back in 1215 and the
preceding years and what happened was
that if you had a wood that was just
around the corner that you’d used when
your father had used before you for
generations and to keep your pigs and to
feed your family and to get the firewood
a lot of people were suddenly finding
that the landscape around them was being
declared a royal forest and that meant
it was the Kings land it was the King’s
hunting grounds and if you went into
that wood that you’ve been using you
know for decades and collected firewood
or acorns just the sustainable things
that the the wood provides you were
stealing and you were subject to harsh
punishments of course people needed to
so they carried on but people were
punished and this was not a situation
that could be allowed to continue
because people’s livelihoods depended on
and had depended on for years
on access to those benefits from trees
and woods a line in the sand had to be
drawn to reclaim these rights and it was
done in the form of a charter the
charter of the forest which you can see
at lincoln castle in the vault and this
Charter which was signed by the king but
not written by the king the king
basically was persuaded forced to give
rights back to the people in these
charters it wasn’t their idea and this
was people power at its finest
and this declared that anybody could go
into any wood sorry any free man
should say we’re not talking about
search there good thing and any any free
man could go into woods with their pigs
they could collect firewood they could
let them do panitch and forage and even
some limited hunting rights even if it
was a Royal Forest and that was
incredibly important for the people at
the time the nearest equivalent if
people remember in 2010 when the UK
government tried to sell off some of the
public forest estate in England and the
public outcry was unprecedented it
completely took them by surprise and and
the backtrack from the government was
forced
so our rights of access to some of these
public forests was protected hopefully
for future generations but a lot of the
risks that face trees and woods today
are a little bit more insidious the
issue with trees is that they live to a
different pace to us you can be born you
can live and you can die on a street
with a tree outside you might not really
see any tangible change in all of that
time and so it’s very easy for them to
feel like background in human terms
trees move very very slowly in social
media terms they hardly move at all in
fact they only move once and that is
when they’re felled because that’s the
only time that you’ll be able to see it
before and after picture that it’s
substantially different a few seconds
apart and that is what motivates a lot
of people these days so if you think
about it if we’re only ever motivated to
stand up and notice trees and woods
around us when they’re felled we’re
always going to be too late
and when I say felled this could be by a
storm it doesn’t have to be by or by
disease it doesn’t have to be by by
somebody with a chainsaw so the issues
that face our trees now are bringing us
to a crisis point when it comes to the
trees and woods of the UK but for a lot
of people they’re invisible issues
things like the D prioritization of
street trees where large trees are being
felled because they cost too much to
manage for council budgets not
recognising all of the benefits that
they bring to people nearby new
developments where trees aren’t being
planted or trees are being planted but
they’re very small trees that will never
give that kind of canopy cover that the
siddur is and nesting opportunities for
birds that
large trees do trees are being replaced
because they are dead and they need to
be replaced but then they’re being
replaced by small trees are not replaced
at all our woods across our landscape
are under threat from from
infrastructure development we have a
demand for housing we have a demand for
infrastructure more than 70% of the UK
landscape is neither wooded nor
currently built on and yet hundreds of
woods are under threat more than 700
ancient woods and that is the rarest the
2% woodland cover that is old woodland
from more than 500 years ago even that
rare protected supposedly protected
woodland and is is under threat from
these infrastructure developments we’re
not prioritizing them and then there are
natural threats as well and exacerbated
by manmade climate change pests and
diseases they’re threatened whole
species like ash in their oak and we
risk losing these trees unless we
prioritize action and that’s not being
prioritized at the moment so we need our
own line in the sand
we need a new charter a charter for
trees woods and people and I’m pleased
to say that there is one it has been
created and it stands for ten principles
which I know you won’t be able to read
on there the Charter is launched on the
6th of November it will be launched in
lincoln castle which is the site of one
of the 1217 historic charters so you’ll
be able to see them side-by-side and
this hasn’t just been created by the
woodland trust this is being created by
more than 70 expert organizations across
lots of different sectors all feeding in
their expertise and their priorities the
principles that it stands for 10
principles of why trees and woods are
important to our lives were formed from
60,000 stories that were sent in by
people across the UK about why trees and
woods matter to them some of you may
have submitted stories yourself but
still on paper these are just ideas for
them to become reality we need people to
stand up and live by these principles
and stand up for them when we see them
being broken and I’m hoping that those
people in the room and those people that
watch this video would be among those
who do that so please do if you stand up
for trees as
the Charter at reaching out to dot uk’
and let’s make sure that we have a
future in which treason people stand
stronger together thank you
[Applause]
who feels that they already have an
important relationship with trees
something that’s important in their
lives
that’s good look at that I say about
two-thirds of the room so we’ll try and
make that 100% by the end but that’s
really good to see so the tree that
you’re looking at now is more than 1,400
years old estimates place at about 2,500
years old
it’s a new tree it’s no wonder that our
pagan ancestors used to worship these
they seem to be immortal in fact
scientifically we now know they kind of
are immortal because unlike other tree’s
who hollow out as they age and
eventually decay you tree sucker up new
growth from the same root system so when
the original tree trunk eventually
decays away you’ve got a new growth that
is still the same tree so really
incredible scientific facts about this
tree but also it has been bound into our
mythology for millennia
now 2500 years old you know that’s quite
a long time certainly in terms of our
history of our civilization but in terms
of our relationship with trees this is
just a blink of an eye now some of you
will know which tree this is it’s not
the oldest you in the UK the oldest view
is actually in Wales the port and
girl.you which is estimated to be about
9,000 years old but this is historically
important because this is the anchor
with you and 800 years ago this
witnessed the signing of the Magna Carta
in 1215 so I thought it seemed like a
good link with the past and with trees
but as I say 2500 years old the blink of
an eye because our relationship with
trees goes all the way back what you’re
looking at now is a carved wooden spear
it’s also made from new woods the same
tree as the anchor wick you this is four
hundred and fifty thousand years old
four hundred and fifty thousand years
old that takes us back through three Ice
Ages when this was mislaid and what is
now Clapton upon see auspicious Liana
now this is the oldest known man-made
wooden object but of course it takes
pretty special conditions for a man-made
wouldn’t object to last hundreds of
thousands of years so our relationship
with wood carving probably goes back a
hell of
further than this and we know our
relationship with trees goes much
further back it goes back to the dawn of
our species because of course our
distant ancestors lived in trees we took
our shelter and we forest for our food
directly from the trees in which we
lived and as we evolved as a species our
relationship with trees also evolved and
so we started by taking our shelter and
our food directly from trees and then of
course we became a little bit more
advanced we started to create tools like
that sphere to be able to get our food
from other sources we started to build
our own shelters from the wood that came
from trees we started to heat our selves
with fire from which we which we created
by burning wood from trees again and
throughout the millennia that followed
we have continued to consistently depend
upon trees and to build this
relationship it has changed as we have
changed but it has always been integral
to our survival and so the landscape
around us is shaped by the ways that we
have used trees the ways that we have
depended upon trees but also we as a
species have been shaped by this
relationship when a life-form evolves it
evolves in certain conditions you think
how we evolved to breathe the atmosphere
of the planet on which we live take away
oxygen we don’t do very well and of
course we know that oxygen itself is one
of the things that trees helps us out
with so do we have a relationship like
that with trees that is that integral
ever since we were you know walking
around for the first time we felt the
need to have trees in our lives and
we’ve depended on them but have we
outgrown that have we evolved beyond our
need for trees so we still use wood wood
is still a very important resource for
us but we do have alternatives we can
create artificial materials none as
versatile as wood none that are
sustainable to produce as planting a
tree and then waiting 40 or 50 years but
we could get by without wood you might
argue a lot of people would say there is
no material that is
pleasant to work with as beautiful but
we could get by without it oxygen can’t
really get by without oxygen but there
are other things that create that for us
and we could even create artificial ways
to do that so are we looking at
something that is more ingrained
something that’s more hardwired into us
as as a species as human beings because
this is the oldest interspecies
relationship that we have ever had long
before we domesticated dogs and horses
long before we kept livestock we were
working with trees and we were depending
on them science would suggest there is
we know through scientific studies that
being out amongst trees is good for us
it’s good for our bodies and our minds
and that’s not just because if you’re
out around trees you’re probably outside
breathing fresh air and doing exercise
it’s all of the sensory inputs that we
get from trees and woods so siddur ism I
love that word which is the sound of
wind in the leaves of trees
birdsong which you wouldn’t get without
somewhere for birds to nest these things
actually have a direct impact on our
brain activity making us more able to
deal with stress more relaxed happier
and take away some of those sensory
inputs trees are still delivering for us
if you have a view of trees from your
window whether it’s your window at home
or your classroom or your office you are
more more likely to be able to deal with
stressful situations you’re going to be
more relaxed you’re going to be happier
it’s been shown that students in
classrooms where they have a view of
trees are better behaved and find it
easier to concentrate where Ward’s of
hospitals have a view of trees it’s been
shown that people recover quicker this
is a incredibly ingrained benefit that
trees can bring to us and these studies
are out there so do search for them I
haven’t got time to go through the stats
and it’s even been shown but a picture
of a tree in a frame or on a screen is
better than not having any tree in view
at all so you’re welcome
and to take that one step further if you
are in a room with nothing made of wood
there’s actually very little wood
surface in this room and or if you’re
too high in a building to be able to see
the canopy of the trees around you
having wood around you wooden furniture
wooden surfaces that haven’t been
painted wooden doors even that makes
that environment more conducive to your
mental health so we are hardwired to
depend on our relationship with trees
and woods so one you mull that over
we’ll think about modern society now how
would we do without trees in our lives
then we know that if we took away oxygen
we don’t do very well what about trees
well we’ve never really certainly in
this part of the world had any reason to
suspect that we would have any
experience of this in our lifetimes
until now for the first time in our very
very long history as a species we’re in
a situation where some people are
disconnected from trees to the extent
that they could go through their daily
lives their working lives and even their
whole lives without having this
integrated relationship with trees and
that really is our first certainly in
the UK and this part of the world and do
we know what that’s going to do to us we
don’t because that hasn’t happened
before
but those scientific studies suggest it
probably isn’t going to be great but
with the increased urbanization and with
the digital culture and changing work
practices this is now the situation that
we find ourselves in a generation is
being is coming up into society and
unless they seek out time amongst trees
it is possible for them to completely
lose that relationship and this is a
spiral potentially because if you think
about it if you’ve got a young
generation that don’t experience the
benefits of spending time with trees
they don’t know what those benefits are
they’ve got no reason to try and seek
them out what you don’t know about
you’re also not going to stand up to
protect
so if trees and woods are under threat
in the future or if our access to the
benefits that they bring is under threat
we rely on the generation that follows
to be willing to stand up and and say we
need this it’s important to us and that
really is under threat so has it ever
been under threat before well to go back
800 years again to the signing of the
Magna Carta at that time people’s
everyday lives were dependent on the
trees and woods and the landscapes
around them people would go and collect
their firewood to heat their homes from
their local wood and if they had a herd
of pigs which was you know often the way
that freemen would make their living
they took them into the wood to feed on
acorns and beech nuts so collecting
firewood was called s Stover one of
these great historical words that isn’t
used much anymore and keeping pigs is
panitch taking them in knocking acorns
off trees which is what’s happening here
so that they can feed it’s great winter
fodder for pigs now back in 1215 and the
preceding years and what happened was
that if you had a wood that was just
around the corner that you’d used when
your father had used before you for
generations and to keep your pigs and to
feed your family and to get the firewood
a lot of people were suddenly finding
that the landscape around them was being
declared a royal forest and that meant
it was the Kings land it was the King’s
hunting grounds and if you went into
that wood that you’ve been using you
know for decades and collected firewood
or acorns just the sustainable things
that the the wood provides you were
stealing and you were subject to harsh
punishments of course people needed to
so they carried on but people were
punished and this was not a situation
that could be allowed to continue
because people’s livelihoods depended on
and had depended on for years
on access to those benefits from trees
and woods a line in the sand had to be
drawn to reclaim these rights and it was
done in the form of a charter the
charter of the forest which you can see
at lincoln castle in the vault and this
Charter which was signed by the king but
not written by the king the king
basically was persuaded forced to give
rights back to the people in these
charters it wasn’t their idea and this
was people power at its finest
and this declared that anybody could go
into any wood sorry any free man
should say we’re not talking about
search there good thing and any any free
man could go into woods with their pigs
they could collect firewood they could
let them do panitch and forage and even
some limited hunting rights even if it
was a Royal Forest and that was
incredibly important for the people at
the time the nearest equivalent if
people remember in 2010 when the UK
government tried to sell off some of the
public forest estate in England and the
public outcry was unprecedented it
completely took them by surprise and and
the backtrack from the government was
forced
so our rights of access to some of these
public forests was protected hopefully
for future generations but a lot of the
risks that face trees and woods today
are a little bit more insidious the
issue with trees is that they live to a
different pace to us you can be born you
can live and you can die on a street
with a tree outside you might not really
see any tangible change in all of that
time and so it’s very easy for them to
feel like background in human terms
trees move very very slowly in social
media terms they hardly move at all in
fact they only move once and that is
when they’re felled because that’s the
only time that you’ll be able to see it
before and after picture that it’s
substantially different a few seconds
apart and that is what motivates a lot
of people these days so if you think
about it if we’re only ever motivated to
stand up and notice trees and woods
around us when they’re felled we’re
always going to be too late
and when I say felled this could be by a
storm it doesn’t have to be by or by
disease it doesn’t have to be by by
somebody with a chainsaw so the issues
that face our trees now are bringing us
to a crisis point when it comes to the
trees and woods of the UK but for a lot
of people they’re invisible issues
things like the D prioritization of
street trees where large trees are being
felled because they cost too much to
manage for council budgets not
recognising all of the benefits that
they bring to people nearby new
developments where trees aren’t being
planted or trees are being planted but
they’re very small trees that will never
give that kind of canopy cover that the
siddur is and nesting opportunities for
birds that
large trees do trees are being replaced
because they are dead and they need to
be replaced but then they’re being
replaced by small trees are not replaced
at all our woods across our landscape
are under threat from from
infrastructure development we have a
demand for housing we have a demand for
infrastructure more than 70% of the UK
landscape is neither wooded nor
currently built on and yet hundreds of
woods are under threat more than 700
ancient woods and that is the rarest the
2% woodland cover that is old woodland
from more than 500 years ago even that
rare protected supposedly protected
woodland and is is under threat from
these infrastructure developments we’re
not prioritizing them and then there are
natural threats as well and exacerbated
by manmade climate change pests and
diseases they’re threatened whole
species like ash in their oak and we
risk losing these trees unless we
prioritize action and that’s not being
prioritized at the moment so we need our
own line in the sand
we need a new charter a charter for
trees woods and people and I’m pleased
to say that there is one it has been
created and it stands for ten principles
which I know you won’t be able to read
on there the Charter is launched on the
6th of November it will be launched in
lincoln castle which is the site of one
of the 1217 historic charters so you’ll
be able to see them side-by-side and
this hasn’t just been created by the
woodland trust this is being created by
more than 70 expert organizations across
lots of different sectors all feeding in
their expertise and their priorities the
principles that it stands for 10
principles of why trees and woods are
important to our lives were formed from
60,000 stories that were sent in by
people across the UK about why trees and
woods matter to them some of you may
have submitted stories yourself but
still on paper these are just ideas for
them to become reality we need people to
stand up and live by these principles
and stand up for them when we see them
being broken and I’m hoping that those
people in the room and those people that
watch this video would be among those
who do that so please do if you stand up
for trees as
the Charter at reaching out to dot uk’
and let’s make sure that we have a
future in which treason people stand
stronger together thank you
[Applause]
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