Skip links

From Shakespeare to Radiohead, ancient woodlands have shaped the UK’s creative landscape. They deserve to be celebrated

If the mindless felling of the Sycamore Gap tree has taught us anything, it is that there is no such thing as “just a tree”, as one of the perpetrators, Adam Carruthers, told the jury. “It was almost as if someone had been murdered,” he said of the ensuing public outcry. For many it was.

Animism runs deeply through our relationship with arboreal life. From Macbeth’s prophetic Birnam Wood to the towering Ents in The Lord of the Rings, trees have long been personified in literature. And, from Constable’s bucolic Suffolk to David Hockney’s Yorkshire wold, they have helped shape Britain’s artistic landscape.

Continue reading…

Research

Featured News

Edward McNabb, pioneer of conservation bioacoustics died on May 7, aged 81

Hello August 7, 2025
0

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and

World’s first industry-wide climate mandate could be launched with shipping vote

Hello August 7, 2025
0

This is Part 1 in a short series on efforts to decarbonize the global shipping

Queensland land clearing figures show state remains ‘deforestation capital of Australia’, conservationists say

Hello August 7, 2025
0

Overall clearing was up 3%, with almost half in Great Barrier Reef catchment areas while

Strategies against deforestation across the Amazon Basin

Hello August 7, 2025
0

The command-and-control approach to reducing or eliminating environmental wrongdoing depends on both carrots and sticks.

UN holds emergency talks over sky-high accommodation costs at Cop30 in Brazil

Hello August 7, 2025
0

Concerns poorer countries could be priced out of negotiations in Belém as room rates soar

Countries failing to act on UN climate pledge to triple renewables, thinktank finds

Hello August 7, 2025
0

Fossil fuel reliance likely to continue and Cop28 target of limiting global heating to below

Trump bids to scrap almost all pollution regulations – can anything stop this?

Hello August 7, 2025
0

EPA tries to rescind ‘endangerment finding’ – part of ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda that experts

Ethiopia’s national tree campaign underway with aim to plant 700 million seedlings in one day

Hello August 7, 2025
0

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia has launched a national campaign to plant 700 million