It's not wise to come between British people and their woodland. A recent survey discovered that we feel closer to our trees than we do our neighbours. For evidence of this you only have to look at the public outrage after the Sycamore Gap tree in Northumberland was illegally chopped down in September 2023. Tens of thousands of messages condemning the act were shared online in the aftermath.
Last Friday Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were convicted of felling the beloved tree, which had stood for more than 150 years.
The National Trust, which owned it since the 1940s, said: "The needless felling of the Sycamore Gap tree shocked people around the country and overseas, demonstrating the powerful connection between people and our natural heritage.
"It was felt particularly deeply here in the North East, where the tree was an emblem of the region and the backdrop to many
personal memories."
There was similar outrage last month when the owners of the Toby Carvery pub chain in North London took a chainsaw to a 500-year-old oak.
Mitchells & Butlers said: "We took necessary measures to ensure any legal requirements were met."
The Met Police later confirmed no crime had been committed. But that did little to subdue the outrage, with Mitchells & Butler later apologising for destroying the ancient tree, which was in a park near to one of their hostelries.
One campaigner lamented: "This is a crime against nature. It's a crime against a 500-year-old being."
And that's the root of the problem: we Britons view trees not as large plants but as fellow beings. If not a nation of tree huggers, we are certainly a nation of tree lovers.
It was a University of Derby survey that revealed our preference for trees over neighbours. "Half of the people who took part told us they have a favourite tree," says Miles Richardson, professor of human factors and nature connectedness at the university. "Eighty-one per cent notice trees wherever they go and more than 90% agree that trees are enjoyed by children.
"Almost all who took part told us that they felt a relationship with nature helped their wellbeing."
It's estimated there are three billion trees in the UK - more than at any time in the last 100 years, according to the Woodland Trust.
Covering 13.2% of the country, they include 100 native and non-native species from alder, beech and cedar to walnut, willow and yew.
Some of our very oldest trees are so adored they have become arboreal celebrities. Take the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest which, according to folklore, was where Robin Hood and his Merry Men slept. Weighing an estimated 23 tons, it is aged between 800 and 1,000 years, and in 2002 was voted Britain's favourite tree.
But it's nowhere near as old as the Fortingall Yew in a churchyard in Perthshire which, according to Forestry and Land Scotland, is 5,000 years old, possibly making it Britain's oldest.
For centuries it has been used as an arch for funeral processions and, long ago, locals used to cut sections off it to create special drinking cups.
Another venerable OAP tree is the Ankerwycke Yew near Wraysbury in Berkshire, which, the National Trust believes, could be 2,500 years old. Growing on the other side of the River Thames from Runnymede, it's said to have witnessed the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 and may be one of the spots where Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn.
While this yew has so far avoided the axe, Boleyn wasn't so lucky.
Other famous trees include Britain's tallest, a 233ft (71m) Douglas fir near Conwy in Snowdonia and the remnants of an apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor in Lincolnshire that dropped its fruit in front of Sir Isaac Newton in 1666, supposedly inspiring his theory of gravity.
But why do we venerate our trees so much?
Colin Tudge is a biologist and author of The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter. He says our love affair for them stems from the millions of years our simian ancestors spent living high up in the canopies. After dropping to the ground and evolving to walk upright, we continued our relationship with trees as they supplied us with fuel, medicines, building materials, ships and paper to write on.
"No wood: no civilisation," says Tudge. "In short, without trees our species would not have come into being at all; and if trees had disappeared after we hit the ground, we would still be scrabbling around like baboons. Perhaps this is why we feel so drawn to trees."
Trees are also deeply rooted in our mythology and literature. Before the mass deforestation of the last millennium, our island was far more forested. There's even an old anecdote - albeit highly exaggerated - that centuries ago Britain bristled with so many trees that a squirrel could hop from John O'Groats to Land's End without touching the ground.
So when our most impressive and attractive trees suffer at the hands of vandals or chainsaw-wielding council officials, we are naturally outraged. That's what happened in Sheffield in the 2010s when, despite a series of public protests, the council cut down thousands of trees across the South Yorkshire city.
There were similar protests in Plymouth in March 2023 when the council felled more than 100 trees in the city centre. That fiasco led to the Conservatives losing control of the local council, with one Labour MP describing it as "a scene of environmental devastation and utter council vandalism".
Dominic Scanlon is an arboriculture consultant at the Aspect Tree Consultancy in Newton Abbot, Devon, who regularly assesses trees all over the country to see if they pose risks to passersby or buildings. Although he recognises local authorities must be watchful of diseased, fungus-decayed or storm-damaged trees, he worries some are too quick or heavy-handed with their chainsaws.
"The risk from trees is amazingly low," he tells the Daily Express. "If you have a tree in the middle of nowhere, the risk to the public might still be really low so that you could leave it alone."
Indeed, according to Britain's Health and Safety Executive, there's only a one in 15 million chance that anyone will be killed by a falling tree or branch.
Scanlon says there are often less stringent alternatives to felling a fragile tree. "You could prune it or build a fence around it or allow brambles or other undergrowth to grow beneath it so as to restrict people walking beneath it," he suggests.
"Authorities should be reasonable. They don't always have to go to such extreme lengths." Fortunately there are plenty of charities protecting our trees. The Tree Council, the Woodland Trust and Canopy, for example, all campaign to stop unnecessary felling.
Adam Cormack, who is head of campaigning at the Woodland Trust says: "Sometimes there can be a good reason to fell a tree but alternatives should always be explored and pursued wherever possible.
"Old trees take centuries to accumulate huge amounts of ecological, cultural and historical value, so every effort should be made to retain them."
Another campaign group is the National Tree Safety Group. "Fear of litigation has caused many landowners to remove trees for 'health and safety' reasons," a spokesman explains.
"The tendency to remove trees from an unreasonable fear of them falling and causing harm disregards evidence that associated deaths and injuries are rare.
"Despite millions of people passing under trees every day, on average fewer than five deaths each year are caused by them."
None of which is any consolation to fans of the poor old Sycamore Gap tree. It was vandals rather than an over-officious council who chopped down that much-loved national treasure near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland National Park.
But even after that act of wanton destruction, there's a glimmer of good news: it turns out there are several tiny shoots emerging from the stump of the tree.
Tony Gates, head of the local park authority, says: "I know this news will bring hope to many people and a smile to many faces, and we will wait to see how these shoots develop.
"I am genuinely intrigued to see what nature will give us."
No doubt, tree-lovers all over the nation will be equally over the moon to see our natural neighbour's return.
