Trees, Science and Opinion
31st May 2012
The practice of arboriculture is ancient. The image above shows it was a subject worthy of being painted about on ancient Egyptian tomb walls, clearly showing people transplanting and caring for trees. The word arboriculture is also old; derived from the Latin arbor (tree), and cultura (tending or caring). Today the terms “Arboriculturist” and “Arboriculturalist” are both used to describe a person who practices professional arboriculture – but which one is the right word? Arboriculture was a term apparently […]
3rd May 2012
Shining spring day Falling cherry blossoms with my calm mind Kino Tomonari My street, in the North West suburbs of Sheffield, is a nice enough, but unremarkable row of 1930’s built semi-detached houses. The Cherry ‘Kanzan’ trees that line my street too, are for most of the year, fairly unremarkable. Historically one of the most planted street trees in Sheffield’s suburbs; many have now died off or succumbed to the perils of new drives and highway improvements. If […]
26th April 2012
New Tree Preservation Order Regulations (TPO Regulations 2012) came into force in England on the 6th April 2012. England. There is a memo to go with the Regs that sets out clearly what all the changes are. The TPO Regulations 2012 aim to put all Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) onto the same footing and consolidate much existing legislation into one new set of regulations. Essentially, the DCLG have attempted to simplify the TPO process in the new regulations, which in itself […]
11th April 2012
Findings of a study, published as part of the Forestry Commission Research Report: Trees, people and the built environment, show that residents are happier if they live near to trees. The study compared the happiness levels of 200 tenants renting properties from a Yorkshire housing charity; half of the tenants questioned had high levels of nearby tree cover and half had few or no nearby trees. The results showed that even with everything else broadly the same, tenants with high […]
22nd February 2012
As a profession, arboriculture has much to learn from ecology. Ecological consultants have, over the last few decades, moved from relative obscurity to become a recognised established profession. Meanwhile arboricultural consultants, when asked the inevitable conversation starter “what do you do for a living?” still tend to have some explaining to do. This professionalism within ecology can be highlighted by the ecological sections of the BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM); where it is recognised that ecological work for BREEAM is specialist […]
1st February 2012
The links between trees, forests and improved mental and physical health are becoming clearer, with an increasing amount of applied research providing a more solid evidence base. When researchers offer explanations as to why such links are evidenced, their theories tend to ultimately be grounded in psycho-evolutionary theory or what the Biologist E.O Wilson termed ‘Biophilia’. Psycho-evolutionary theory is based on the notion that millions of years of evolution have left modern humans with a partly genetic predisposition to […]
21st December 2011
In the autumn edition of Chartered Forester magazine I had a short opinion piece published, ‘Cracking up’, which looked at the issues surrounding urban trees being removed due to subsidence claims and highlighted how the issue seems to make the tree industry so emotive. The piece provoked considerable interest and a few critical responses (generally from tree consultants who make a living from dealing with tree related subsidence claims). The latest issue of Chartered Forester featured a letter from Michael Lawson and my response which I have copied below. […]
16th December 2011
When trees are on a development site they are often unduly considered a constraint to the sites development potential. However a suitable tree survey for planning should help identify not only trees that may pose a constraint to the development potential of a site, but also the trees that would add value and be an asset to any new development. This newly built kindergarten is a great example of using a sites existing trees as an asset not a constraint. It […]
2nd December 2011
Winson. Flourishing trees flourishing minds This is the urban forestry research paper – flourishing trees, flourishing minds; looking at how urban trees may improve mental wellbeing. The research paper forms part of the Forestry Commission Research Report Trees, people and the built environment – Proceedings of the Urban Trees Research Conference 13-14 April 2011 Flourishing trees, flourishing minds: nearby trees may improve mental wellbeing among housing association tenants.Abstract: Interventions to create even a small change in the average level of mental wellbeing across the […]
29th November 2011
When most people think of a forest, they think of a big area of trees. Yet definitions of a forest vary (for example, as arboricultural consultants we focus on the ‘urban forest‘) and a historical overview of the definition of ‘forest’ suggests it is not as clear cut as it seems. In ‘Forests, The Shadow of Civilization’ (1993), Robert Harrison notes how medieval chivalric romances tend to represent forests as lying beyond the confines of the civic world and its […]