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Boy, 16, arrested over felling of iconic ‘Robin Hood tree’ next to Hadrian’s Wall

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Boy, 16, arrested over felling of iconic ‘Robin Hood tree’ next to Hadrian’s Wall
16 comments

  • An aspiring property developer I see.

    • Or a contemporary of Stonehenge's builders.

      https://aeon.co/essays/who-chopped-down-britains-ancient-forests

      Much of England had been cleared as early as 1000 BCE, some two millennia beforehand. The Bronze Age saw intensive farming on a scale that we are only just beginning to appreciate. As Oliver Rackham puts it in The History of the Countryside:

      It can no longer be maintained, as used to be supposed even 20 years ago, that Roman Britain was a frontier province, with boundless wild woods surrounding occasional precarious clearings on the best land. On the contrary, even in supposedly backward counties such as Essex, villa abutted on villa for mile after mile, and most of the gaps were filled by small towns and the lands of British farmsteads.

      Rackham describes the immense clearance undertaken during the Bronze Age, boldly claiming that ‘to convert millions of acres of wildwood into farmland was unquestionably the greatest achievement of any of our ancestors’. He reminds us how difficult it was to clear the woodland, as most British species are difficult to kill: they will not burn and they grow again after felling. Moreover, in his dry phrase, ‘a log of more than 10 inches in diameter is almost fireproof and is a most uncooperative object’. The one exception was pine, which burns well and, perhaps as a consequence, disappeared almost completely from southern Britain, the presumption being that prehistoric man could easily burn the trees where they stood: the image of pine trees burning like beacons across the countryside is a strong one.

    • Or an effective performance art climate protester.

    • They're building some new houses round my way.

      Annoyed me that they chopped down a bunch of trees for them, and worse the trees would have been in the gardens. Now they'll just have a featureless, badly laid lawn and a wonky new build fence to look at instead.

      • Trees, especially thirsty ones, cause issues with foundations. The issues are not insurmountable, but they are expensive.
        Developers, looking to maximize profit, far prefer removing the trees if they can.

  • Probably won't be the only scratter involved judging by this picture

  • General manager Andrew Poad said the sycamore had been "an important and iconic feature in the landscape for nearly 200 years".

    Well, Robin Hood was supposed to have been running around in the 12th century, so I suppose it was a bit ahistorical in the context of the guy anyway.

    Maybe have the little lumberjack go up and try his hand at being an arborist and plant some new sycamores along the wall for future generations.

    EDIT: If they move quickly on it, I imagine that they could probably use cuttings from the existing tree.

    EDIT2: Yup, apparently it works with cuttings:

    https://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/database/lppi/sp012.shtml

    Acer pseudoplatanus

    Primary method of propagation: seed
    Alternate propagation method(s): cutting, grafting/budding

    • Well, Robin Hood was supposed to have been running around in the 12th century, so I suppose it was a bit ahistorical in the context of the guy anyway.

      I think it's called the Robin Hood Tree because it was in a Robin Hood film.

      If they move quickly on it, I imagine that they could probably use cuttings from the existing tree

      That'd be a nice touch, from one tree dozens could spring up. Seems fitting.

      • I think it’s called the Robin Hood Tree because it was in a Robin Hood film.

        Yeah, but the movie was presumably filmed there because they were looking for something that didn't have houses or whatnot in view, looked like it did during the time of Richard Lionheart.

    • Hmm. I was wondering if the National Trust would object to plantings -- I dunno if you can do that in national forests here in the US -- but it looks like they do plant stuff:

      https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/support-us/plant-a-tree

      Help plant more trees

      For only £5, you can plant a tree that will tackle climate change and support life for years to come. Your support will help to plant and establish 20 million trees by 2030.

      1,000,000 saplings have been planted so far thanks to your donations
      14 species of tree have been planted including oak, beech and crab apple

      https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/03/national-trust-to-plant-1200-hectares-of-flower-filled-grassland-in-devon

      National Trust to plant 1,200 hectares of flower-filled grassland in Devon

      EDIT: Looks like we do it in the US too, and the program even has the same name:

      https://plantatree.fs.usda.gov/

      Donations to Plant-A-Tree will be used to plant trees on national forests throughout the U.S. and territories. You can select to have your donation go to where it’s needed most or to a specific national forest. Donations to where it’s needed most are received in the national office over the course of the year and are pooled and distributed annually to reforestation projects at various locations in the national forest system.

16 comments