Guest post by Thelma Rumsey, South Hams Network Secretary
With the support of The Tree Council, 24 members of the South Hams Tree Warden Network benefitted from some serious training on how to identify veteran and ancient trees. Over two Saturdays in May Rupert Baker, a well-known and respected arborist and ex-arboricultural instructor, passed on some of his extensive knowledge to an attentive audience. Also in attendance, adding extra support and knowledge, was South Hams District Council’s tree officer Lee Marshall.
We were grateful to the Dartington Estate, near Totnes, for allowing us access to its gardens. The estate is famous for the number of ancient and veteran trees, of different species, within its grounds. The location was ideal for Rupert to educate attendees in recognising the numerous different features that need to be assessed to decide if a tree can be classed as ancient or veteran. We learnt that this is rather more complicated than we thought! With this improved knowledge, our hope is that local tree wardens will feel more certain in their assessment of the status of a tree and will feel confident to place trees on the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory map.
This increased focus on our local veteran trees was prompted by the well-publicised felling of the Sycamore Gap tree and the felling of the Whitewebbs Park ancient oak in Enfield. These two events attracted considerable attention, with an outpouring of sadness at the loss of such wonderful old trees. When Lee Marshall was asked by the South Hams and West Devon local authority if he knew how many ancient and veteran trees we had in our area, he could not answer immediately. He subsequently found, using information on the Woodland Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory (ATI), that only 482 such trees had been recorded within the area. Shocked by how low the number was, he asked local Tree Wardens to help by looking for these significant trees around their parishes and recording them.
This training course has been a very good example of organisations working together. Positive action by committed individuals within the local authority, The Tree Council, The Woodland Trust, the Dartington Estate and of course the Tree Wardens, will bring results which will hopefully improve the protection of these important trees for the future.
It is now up to the Tree Wardens to start recording trees onto the Woodland Trust’s ATI mapping system and for Lee Marshall and Rupert Baker, as certified verifiers, to confirm the status of each tree. By the end of the year, we hope to have a much better idea of the actual number of South Hams’ ancient and veteran trees, the mix of species, some idea of their state of health and if they are under any threat.
For more information about The Tree Council’s Tree Warden Scheme and to find your nearest Network, visit https://treecouncil.org.uk/tree-wardens/
