Post 46 The Trees of Life

ABOUT TREES      (August ’22, finished June 2023)

Our garden bleaches in the Summer heat
But underneath the leafy shade of well loved trees
We shelter, watching from our garden seat
The swallows swoop; and listening to the drone of bees

This sycamore was here before we came
It’s now grown high and shaped by strong and salty winds
There’s room for myriad life within it’s frame
And in it’s branches pigeons roost and fold their wings

Nearby a twisted willow’s graceful green
Sways, side to side, it’s leafy curtains all the day
And in it’s cover many birds are seen
Where goldfinch, sparrows, and their fledglings play

Four damson trees, full grown before our time
Provide abundantly their purple drupes
And, in the row, an ancient apple tree
Is weighed down with it’s myriad golden fruits

One rowan, bought for only fifty pence
From Mencap, as a seedling, frail and small
Now waves it’s slender branches metres up
White flowered, with orange berries in the fall

An apricot, still small and immature
Grows close by to a plum tree, larger still
It’s crop is stolen by the early birds
Who, long before us, take and eat their fill

And, all around our boundary, tower the elms
Where native ash and beech are thriving too
While all produce the oxygen of life
And store within in their growth that CO2

 

 

 

 

Many years ago, when we lived in the Carmarthenshire hills, the Forestry Commission had a tree planting policy of mainly pine. These grew to a great height. Underneath there was little life, due to the acidification of pine needles; and we still remember a great storm, some time in the nineties, that flattened the shallow rooted forest. Great swathes of wooded land were destroyed; and had not been rejuvenated when we moved from our smallholding in 1997.

And tree planting appears to be a favoured target for greenwashing. I recently read that large consortiums are using their superior purchasing power to buy up farms coming onto the market, and gazumping local farmers. This is already happening in the UK; in Scotland, England, and even here in Wales. Just when farmers are trying to change their farming methods, after the withdrawal of EU subsidies, they come up against these new ‘tricks’ for making money from ‘investments’ in carbon offset.

The danger with this approach is that the ‘wrong’ trees get planted (mainly coniferous) on farmland that would support long growing deciduous trees; especially if the new (old) system of Silvopasture (combining pasture and arable husbandry.( see post 27) is reintroduced. .

Now, I don’t want to prejudge the mindset of the Investors; which, as a general rule, appears to be ‘pile up the profit’; but I can’t budge the suspicion that many of them have little commitment to slowing down climate change; their priority always being the returns on their investments. We are NOT going to turn this ‘tanker’ around if the bottom line is always money focused.

Many years ago, we were having a holiday in the Dordogne area of France; courtesy of a friend, who had bought a cottage in that part of the country. It was situated in an area that was blessed with many walnut trees; which we were informed had been, in the recent past, considered a substantial contribution to a daughters dowry; the long view of monetary gain being applied to the harvest of the walnuts, a crop of value, year after year.

Other nut trees that can be grown in the UK are hazel, sweet chestnut and almond. I would like to see the planting of these valuable food sources, along with the many fruit trees (and bushes) prioritized over the short lived ‘profitable’ species, so favoured by the short termist ‘green credential’ investors. As well as providing much needed extra income for farmers, this added diversity could contribute to a more sustainable source of quality nutrition and less exports from overseas.

And I am, quite, hopeful that our British farmers are looking favourably at alternative sources of sustainable income, including selling produce locally, instead of being ‘price shafted’ by supermarkets and their ilk, now that the prop of EU subsidies is in the process of being removed.

But I get nervous about the decisions being made at (Welsh) government level, regarding the new rules for the replacement of the EU Regional Development and EU Social Funds (EURDSF) with the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). I won’t bore you with the breakdown of the figures, which arrive at the following conclusion. Suffice to say that Wales is predicted to have an overall shortfall of funding to the tune of £1.1 billion; mainly creamed off and diverted by the government at Westminster; which also lays the blame of the difficult decisions that have to be made due to this lack of funding, squarely at the Senedd’s door. Some of it true; but mostly obfuscation by the perpetrators of the ‘steal’.

It’s very probable that this won’t be the last word, from me, on this subject. Watch this space!