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Charles Watkins, "Trees Ancient and Modern: Woodland Cultures and Conservation" (Reaktion, 2025)
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Go beyond the verses and achieve a deeper understanding of Scripture with the Rebind Study Bible App. An audio experience of the Bible interwoven with expert commentary. The Rebind Study Bible App reads Scripture to you, enriching your comprehension with insights from the world renowned New International commentary on the Old and the New Testament in an accessible podcast episode format.
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Be not therefore anxious for the morrow. Matthew chapter 6. Each day will have its troubles, but by God's grace they can be survived.
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Use the Rebind Study Bible App's chat function to ask questions and get answers in real time. That's thought provoking discussion and analysis rooted in decades of research and wisdom from more than 40 scholars at your fingertips. The Rebind Study Bible App is a new way to experience the Bible with enhanced depth, at your own pace in the moments you have. Search the Apple App Store for Rebind Study Bible or go to rebind app.com newbooks network for a free seven day trial. Hello everybody, this is Marshall Po. I'm the founder and editor of the New Books Network and if you're listening to this, you know that the NBN is the largest academic podcast network in the world. We reach a worldwide audience of 2 million people. You may have a podcast or you may be thinking about starting a podcast. As you probably know, there are challenges basically of two kinds. One is technical. There are things you have to know in order to get your podcast produced and distributed. And the second is, and this is the biggest problem, you need to get an audience. Building an audience in podcasting is the hardest thing to do today. With this in mind, we at the NBM have started a service called NBN Productions. What we do is help you create a podcast, produce your podcast, distribute your podcast, and we host your podcast. Most importantly, what we do is we distribute your podcast to the NBN audience. We've done this many times with many academic podcasts and we would like to help you. If you would be interested in talking to us about how we can help you with your podcast, please contact us. Just go to the front page of the New Books Network and you will see a link to NBN Production. Click that, fill out the form and we can talk. Welcome to the New Books Network.
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C
Hello everyone and welcome back to New Books in History, a podcast on the New Books Network. I'm Yana Byers, your host and I'm here today with Charles Watkins, professor of Rural Geography at the University of Nottingham, to talk about his new book, Trees Ancient and Modern, out this year 2025. With reaction books. Hello, Charles, and welcome to the program. So how are you this blustery fall day?
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B
Well, it's wonderful. I was actually looking out of my window here at the University of Nottingham. It's a leafy scene. The beautiful beech, trees of leaves are falling down gradually. It's charming. Bit damp, but apart from that, fine.
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C
Well, we're in Northern Europe, that's how we live. I'm in Amsterdam and every time I want to complain about the rain, I just say, well, you moved here. You've got no one to blame but yourself for the weather. Yeah, I think it's funny that you're at. Not interesting. Funny appropriate that you're at Nottingham, perhaps like the most famous of forests in England and in the western mindset anyway.
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B
Yes, Sherwood Forest. Yes, it is. I was interested in trees before I came to Nottingham to do research. But Sherwood Forest is an extraordinary historical and contemporary factor. It was, of course, the very phrase Sherwood Forest is itself problematic. So Sherwood probably means shire wood, the wood of the shire. Shire wood. The term forest is something which is really an invention of the Normans when they came over in the 11th century and is an area of land devoted for, preserved for the king's hunting. And it didn't necessarily mean woodland. So we have, in the uk, we have Exmoor Forest, which has virtually got no trees, Dartmoor Forest, which has very few trees, and Sherwood Forest, which has fewer trees than people might expect. In fact, it included in the 14th century the whole of the town of Nottingham, many villages, large areas, areas of countryside. What the word forest meant was that in those areas the king's deer were protected. You couldn't kill them for your own use. But it has become associated, the word forest in English generally with woodland. And so people, when they come to Sherwood Forest, expect to see miles and miles of trees and woodland. What they do find, however, is a fascinating area of oak trees and birch trees at a place called Birkelands, which. Where many of the oak trees are over 500 years old and some are probably over a thousand years old. So there are some ancient trees in Sherwood Forest, but it's a relatively small area that is.
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C
So these are so many of the questions because it brings up so many points I want to discuss today. That's perfect. So this is your third book with reaction about trees. And so I'm just curious how trees and forests, which are something, you know, very different, as noted, become this long term passion for you. Was it just coming from Nottingham that I know it?
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B
It is interesting. I mean, I'm interested I'm interested in other things too. I write. I'm a. I'm a rural job, so I write about people in the countryside areas of. I've done work on the royal clergy, on the country solicitor, so I'm interested in the countryside.
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C
The.
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B
But the last three books I've had with reaction have all been about trees and woods and forests in various ways. I did one most recently on Trees in Art, where I particularly looked at the ways that artists respond to trees and to an extent, how trees are a construct or the way trees are planted and laid out are a construct of the artistic imagination. So there's that aspect, I think trees are. And I think probably about 30 years ago, when I started doing a lot of work on trees, people would at parties say, oh, trees, yes. And then the conversation would move on. Now suddenly, in fact, it's a bit tedious. Now suddenly, people want to know an enormous amount of detail. They talk about carbon sequestration. They'll say, well, are we going to. Should everything be woodland? Should be rewilding. So the enthusiasm for trees is now much more common than it was 30 or 40 years ago, certainly in places like Northern Europe and the States.
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C
Yeah. I was struck with, when reading this book, just how much baggage we carry with us when we're talking about trees and forest. You know, they've been a canvas for our ideas for such a long time that I almost want to say we make forest and sylvan landscapes in our own image. Does that seem like a fair thing to say?
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B
Well, absolutely. I mean, in the 18th century, the whole idea of what we now know as the picturesque, the idea there was that 18th century theorists like Gilpin and Yuvdal Pfeiss and others, they thought, what is beauty? What is the most interesting thing we can see? And they say, well, we'll turn to artists. How do artists represent the countryside? And they said, well, they don't just have what we think of as beauty. They have things like they have old gnarled trees, they have roots, they have twisted branches and so which they call the picturesque because it's like the picture. And then they said, no, we must recreate landscapes like the picturesque. So there's this move in Britain from the smooth lawns of Capability Bound landscapes to the idea of picturesque landscapes. And this. You mentioned Sherwood Forest, by the way. And this is one of the reasons why the ancient oaks survived from the 18th century onwards, because the landowners and tourists suddenly started visiting these areas and thinking, oh, no, these aren't decrepit ancient trees of no value. These are picturesque. And so the tourist trade really got going in the late 18th and early 19th century. And with the railways, it meant that lots and lots of tourists went to places like the Sherwood Forest or the New Forest or Epping Forest. These are forests in England.
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C
I mean, I'm an American, as you probably can tell from my accent, you know. And so we have these national parks that are about the preservation of forests.
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B
And that those ideas, those ideas of the picturesque and what is beautiful and what is nature. And then, of course, influencing people like Wordsworth and the people who wanted to save those notionally wild parts of the forest, because these forests are often seen as it were, relatively untouched by humans. But of course, all the trees in the woods we see are indeed touched and indeed informed and modified by human activity through, for example, fire grazing of flocks of sheep, cattle. So there's been a lot of management over the years across the world.
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C
Yeah, of course, you know, we live. We live in these things and. And the management. We'll get into that. But I mean, so historically, woods have represented wilderness. Is that fair or like, in a good amount, that they're wilderness and untouched and then that's scary.
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B
Yes. Well, in literature, of course, you get the forest as wilderness. Absolutely. But also there is also sort of religious connotations, too. Sacred woods, I think, dangerous because of the animals that lived there or lived there, a sense of lack of uncertainty, not being able to see. Whereas, of course, in open areas, at least if you've got nice managed areas with grapevines or wheat, you can see where your enemy might be. Woods are often crucial in terms of warfare. And one of the reasons why we have, in Europe and in other places, fantastic maps which show in detail woodlands, and the characteristics of woodlands, really detailed in the 19th century, was because it was so armies could make use of the woods, either to, as it were, hide in them or behind them, or make use of the use of the trees and woods in warfare.
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C
And also, I mean, that's where wolves and werewolves and wild men and like folktale witches are out there.
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B
Absolutely. And you get the trees. Well, of course, I think if any of us go and walk in a wood by ourselves on a foggy day or a windy, cold day and you're wandering around, it's easy to get lost in the woods still. I mean, even with gps, if you suddenly not quite sure which way you're going and then the phone runs out of battery and then you hear branches click or the strange noise that trees blowing in the wind dead Branches hitting each other. These all give a sense of you are uncertain, you don't know where you are, how do you get out? And I think that is a sort of human respons, Know the woodland well, it's easy to get lost in. Lost in woods. And of course, you know, as you know, Dante, from Dante onwards and before, there's this idea of being lost in a wood and the metaphor of being in the wilderness.
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C
Yeah. Which we refer to as kind of anyone who's out of control. But also being in the wilderness is a sacred journey as well.
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B
Absolutely, absolutely. So of course in Japan and many, I mean, people, I think almost worship. Well, they do worship trees in some parts of the world, but I think increasingly people almost worship trees. Even in somewhere like Britain we had a famous case, I don't know if it hit the international news, where a tree, which was called the Sycamore Gap tree, which featured in lots of films and photographs, was felled by two criminals for no apparent reason. And this caused a huge fury. But it was just a tree. I mean, across the country that day that tree was felled. But also probably thousands of others were felled in terms of forestry operations. And that didn't cause any problems. So particular trees get particular associations.
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C
That case made it to the States like that. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Not just Europe. Like Americans were talking about that. And people wanted those kids to like go to jail.
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B
Yes, I think that's extraordinary. Really, because. Well, yes, and they have. Yes, they're in jail. But one might question whether the length of the sentence was the right length. But that is extraordinary. And also trees. But trees are dangerous as well. So I was talking about walking through woods in a windy weather just now, but it's quite dangerous in stormy weather. Woods are dangerous. Branches fall down, trees do fall in cities, branches fall off trees near pedestrians or the worst case scenario on pedestrians. So although people want street trees, they want things, they are expensive to maintain. You don't just. You can't just plant a tree and say, I've done my bit for before, you know, a little bit of global warming offset. That tree has to be managed and looked after. I think understanding the requirements of trees and the cost of management is something which I think is important.
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C
Yeah, absolutely. And we don't. The average human being has no idea what goes into management of like conservation efforts or keeping, you know, keeping a forest healthy on its own. So you open your book with the chapter titled Ancient Origins. The talks, it begins with naming. And so how naming a species is a very loaded Process as is just naming something and. And you know, air quotes here, listeners. Ancient woodland. So what does that mean? What is an ancient woodland?
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B
Well, an ancient woodland. I mean the meaning has changed over time and so it was actually invented by two people, a chap who's now dead called Oliver Rackham and a chap who's very much alive called George Peterkin. And they, they were, they were nature conservationists and ecologists in the 1960s and they, well, and George still is in the 1970 they realized that fragments of woodland in Britain were probably the relics of some sort of original woodland cover. They'd been woodland for a very, very long time and they'd worked this out by looking at the ecology and the archeology of the woods. So these are just like a little wood of 10 or 20 acres in a parish. And they worked out that these woods had not, many of them had not been cultivated or used for another purpose. They'd always been woodland. And they could work this out by looking at the species, the ecology of the plants growing in there. So some plants don't spread easily by seed. There's one plant called Herb Paris, which hardly ever, well actually until the last couple of years because it seems to be with global warming it might be coming back to be able to see but hard ever seeds. There's a tree called the wild service tree, Sorbus torminalis, just to give its Latin name. These hardly ever planted. And so if you get one of these trees or those plants growing in a woodland, they were seen as some sort of indicators of old woodland. Now that's one thing. So they could work out old woodland. And these are ecologically important, but how do you get the popular support for these? And they said, well, what could we call them? Very old woodland. And then the idea was, well, on the analogy of ancient buildings, there was a society called the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings which was set up in the late 19th century and that was very successful. And so they said, okay, let's just call them ancient woodlands. And so they called them ancient woodlands. And that really took off. People listed them. Initially, owners didn't want their woodlands to be called ancient because that meant that they couldn't. They had to have restrictive management practices. Within 20 years, estate agents were selling properties which they said, you know, X house, X acres and an ancient woodland. So it became something which was marketable and people wanted it. And of course it has a real value. It's got, it's the sort of woods that have lots of bluebells in lots of, lots of old tree, but not necessarily old trees because it's more. These trees are managed. They've been often coppiced or pollarded over centuries. So they're managed woodlands. Sorry. So that's going on pasavado, a long time about ancient woodlands, but it really took off and now as a phase. So now there are ancient woodland inventories going on across Europe. It's less relevant where you've got large areas of woodland which is grazed by animals. It's more enclosed woodlands which are protected. Farm incursion.
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C
Yeah. And it's, there's something. It's, it's. It evokes this idea, you know, of like the untouched, the. We talk about virgin forests which are. Of which there are none. Right. Like that simply doesn't exist, but it's, you know.
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B
Yes, right, so. Exactly. So. So I mean, there were certain woods, I remember going to wood and there was a. Some lime tree. There was a lime tree, an old lime tree, about 2 or 300 years old. It's recently fallen down, actually a lime tree. Bluebells, hazel coppice, signs of management. And in the lime tree there was a large hole, probably why the tree fell down. And in the hole was a bee colony and bees were coming in and out. And the sounds and the scents made you, you could think, well, this Shakespeare could have seen exactly this. A medieval peasant would have seen this. Someone in 500 AD, this would have been the same. There's no change. Then you hear a plane going overhead and you think, oh well, there is a change. There is a sense of a sort of connection with the long past, long distance past.
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C
And an illusion it might be, but it's a nice one and I understand the desire for it. So I have this question that's really basic, but go with me, what's coppicing?
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B
Coppicing? Yes. That simply means when you. Most broadleaf trees and some conifers, but mainly broadleaf trees, when you cut them down to the ground, they will send up shoot and you take the tree away for all the branches away for some purpose, building firewood or whatever. If grazing animals are kept away, the tree will shoot up and it will regrow. And this was recognized, certainly. I mean, coppicing took place in the. Well, 4,000 years ago. There's evidence in this, in Britain of coppicing from that's three and 4,000 years ago through archaeological sites. And this was very useful because if you went in a wood, once it was coppiced, you could then cut it to cut down the shoots that are coming up at any size, from the size of a pencil to the size of a walking stick, to the size of a. I don't know, I'm trying to use modern analogies, a hockey sticker and then up to larger poles and then. And then, of course, the great thing is when they're that small, you can carry them around. It's incredibly difficult to fell timber, large timber trees. And so. And these were used. And this was the way. So the woods were managed, have been managed as coppice woodland across Europe and in other parts of the world too, by humans for thousands of years. So that's what coppicing is. And it regrows. What you need to do is to protect, if possible, the regrowth from grazing animals. So you could use, often old branches of trees were put on top of the coppice tool so that this can get. Nowadays it's fenced often with electric fences. Now, pollarding, which is like coppicing but at head height, pole like Poltax, pollarding is at head height. And that means you can have grazing animals, but you've cut it off at head height so that the animals can't get the regrowth. So that's. You often get to be park trees.
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C
Yeah. And that is a. It's a particularly recognizable site in the. You know, in the landscape.
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B
In the landscape, absolutely. You see these pollarded trees, often they're overgrown because nowadays it's very expensive to pollard trees because in the past people would climb up into the trees and hack off the branches when quite small. If a pollarded tree is left untouched, then there are large branches. And the health and safety issues of cutting down pollarding pollards are very expensive. So lots of street trees, of course, you have to have these, what are called cherry pickers. And it costs a lot of money to pollard trees on a regular basis.
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C
So another thing is. So thousands of years, four or four thousand years, we've been doing this and this is an art that was almost lost in our lifetime. Your lifetime.
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B
My lifetime, yes. So what happened, of course, with coal and then oil. So, I mean, one of the key things for coppice was firewood. And so the. And hedgerows too, were, in this country, are often managed for coppice too. And so these are linear coppice and these are now things which are very expensive to manage and cost money. But in the past, that would have been crucial. You see all. And you see those paintings from the 18th century, often with young children carrying sticks or women Sometimes carrying sticks of wood, you still see it in some parts of the world over their shoulders, and they're carrying that firewood back to the cottage to heat and to cook, of course, because you needed the fire to cook and to heat, so you needed fires all year round, not just in the cold weather. And so you're getting. So it's firewood. So now with coal and then the reuse of iron to replace all those things like barrels. Well, not so much barrels. They're about the one thing which is made of wood still. But all the utensils that used to be made of wood and are now made of iron meant that there was a collapse in the market for coppice. So coppice woods in the 19th century were more profitable than wheat in many parts of very many years. Then they lost value altogether, and then they weren't managed for 50 or 60 years. And then conservationists then were reinvented and reapplied coppice in many parts. And so now it's called conservation coppicing. Interestingly, in just more recent years with the fashion for open fires, the market for firewood has now increased in Britain in particular, and in Italy. So the firewood is now. So now coppicing can be quite profitable again. So it's gone through a big cycle.
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C
That's. That is fascinating. And now it's this. And. And I think. I mean, just any kind of. Anytime a technology is almost lost, you're going to at least get hobbyists or someone to care about it. Yeah. So the. You know the famous Led Zeppelin 4, the COVID of that album.
- [25:15]
B
Oh, dear. I don't. I'm afraid. Tell me. Ignited.
- [25:18]
C
Well, it's just an old. A very old man who stooped and he's carrying wood on his back. And it made headlines recently because they found a picture. It's some guy in 1878 who's carrying firewood back. That was his job. He was a wood carrier.
- [25:35]
B
Oh, yeah, Wood carrier. So the millet paintings by Millay in the French Painter. There was some. There's an exhibition at the small exhibition at National Gallery in London at the moment, and it showed three or four. Often there are four paintings in there of wood cutters and so forth and depicting the really hard work that they have. An enormous. Yes, you had to get that stuff out. There was no other way. I mean, always. Also, you would, of course, use mules and other. And horse and casks. But it was heavy because you try and carry it when it was light, when it was already dead.
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C
Right. So lighter. This man had just been. You can tell this. I'm going to send you the image. And you will. You'll recognize it. It's pretty famous. But he's clearly been doing this for many of his advanced years.
- [26:23]
B
Well, thanks for that effort. I got to look it up after this interview. Fascinating.
- [26:28]
C
Yeah, absolutely. We'll talk some more. So what I'm seeing here is there's a lot about managing forests, felling, replanting, harvesting, rewilding. There's a lot of like there that just requires a lot of input from everyone from environmentalists, from the government, from woodlands. There's such a big process. How do we get any of it done? I don't. I don't know where my question was. In there.
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B
Right.
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C
Well.
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B
Well, we could all plug. We can all. I mean, if you've got a garden, you can, you can. And it's a reasonable size. Well, even small gardens, you can have a very small garden. You could have one tree and, and, and of course, some. And a single tree in a, In a. Small shady. In a. In a. I mean, often if in cities or, you know, European cities or any city, if you're wandering around, often it's important. A single tree in a street can make a huge difference to it. It can in terms of the appearance of the street. And when it's gone, people are suddenly horrified. This is where you get. This tree is gone or been modified in some way. So you could say a single tree in a small garden, or you could plant a tree and then, for example, you could replicate coppicing or you could copies. So in other words, if you couldn't grow a big tree, you couldn't cut it down once every three or four years and then it'll grow up again. In this country, many trees can be copies or introduced trees. Eucalyptus. Many of the eucalyptus trees they produce is their coppice. Perhaps once every two years they can produce foliage, which people who do flower arranging are very keen on. Eucalyptus gunnia, which has this blue foliage now. But if you don't coppice it, beware because it grows. It's one of the fastest trees growing. And therefore you will have costs to bear because it'll start pulling up the paving or your neighbors will complain. But you need to. So there and now. I'm not suggesting all trees should be managed also. I mean, if you live in a. In, out in the country, you can just. Well, in actually, Yana, you can actually do nothing. You can have a piece of land do nothing and the trees will grow up if you're. If not, even if you're lucky. So oak oaks will grow. Lots of trees will grow up without you doing much. They won't necessarily produce much timber or whatever, but they will, of course, if you leave it for years, will start taking carbon dioxide out of the air. So. Yes, so that's that idea of rewilding, where you let things go and you rewild. That can be managed as well. But. So you can do. And I think you can plant trees. You can encourage governments to. I mean, most governments are keen in Europe to have more trees, but you need the friendly farmers and friendly landowners to do this. But the bad thing about trees and woods is that they hardly produce much. They don't produce much income. So if you've got to wait a long time, you can do this through tourism. If you've got a large estate, you can have glamping sites and bird watching trips and things like that, but on a small farm scale, that's more difficult to get income from fees.
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C
Yeah. So, I mean, certainly. As opposed to just having, you know, whatever beehives or building an altered. A second dwelling unit or something.
- [30:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [30:08]
C
The Airbnb.
- [30:09]
B
Yes, yes, absolutely, yes.
- [30:11]
A
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- [31:13]
C
Which is one more thing wrong with Airbnbs. I've just. I've just found a new reason to dislike Airbnbs. Places that could be forested. So there's also. Forests are home to animals. And so managing forests is often about managing animal populations.
- [31:30]
B
Absolutely. So a lot of the open areas of Mediterranean woodlands, for example, and indeed in northern Europe, in the. In the moorland areas, these. These are not wild landscapes. They're produced by either by grazing. So there were huge flocks of sheep and goats in Greece, Italy, Spain, France and so forth. And these were managed carefully, which they would be in the lowlands in the winter and they would go up through a process called transhumans. They would move up the flocks and people would often stay there in the hills in the summer, grazing and then go back again. Now, of course, but the trees, these were often. They had to have shepherds and shepherdesses, which is why I call shepherds in the Bible and in classical literature are so important. And there would have to be great control over, for example, if there were olive trees or if there were fruit trees or other types of trees, there'd be a very careful management trying to get the two. And there were constant disputes between the graziers and the, as it were, the people who owned the trees. But you would have dense patches of woodland too, which were protected from these flocks.
- [32:49]
C
Yeah. You know, Iceland is a great example of a place that's just been so wild. I mean, it was completely forested and then completely deforested and now they're managing like reforestation. But there are a lot of lambs.
- [33:03]
B
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, yes, absolutely, yes. And of course then of course the wild animals. So there's a lot of interest in, with rewilding of introducing animals or reintroducing animals like wolves and beavers and so forth in Britain and of course across Europe and other places and they. And that. But a lot of people don't like the idea of wolves. And so it's this balance between the two is between sort of human perceptions. Now, some animals which have very successfully been introduced are deer. So the deer population in Britain is now huge compared to what it was 100 years ago. And this is partly this due to two factors. One is there is now more woodland. So because of the success of afforestation since 1900, the woodland area and this people often surprised by this is woodland area has more than has doubled in England over the last hundred years. So. And that means more habitat really for deer. Not only that, the number of species of deer has increased. So there have been various people collected, like to collect trees, they like to import trees of exotic trees, like to import exotic species. And so One that was introduced was a deer called the Muntjac deer. M U N T J A C from southeast China, small deer. And it was introduced and really into parks and so forth, and then started spreading in the 1950s. And now it is spread, it's very dominant across the whole of England and into Wales and southern Scotland. Now people might say, well, that's nice, more deer. But on the other hand, they're one of these animals which do enjoy nibbling young trees. So if you are trying to establish rewilding or you're trying to plant new trees, controlling Muntjac is a really significant, significant problem. The other big problem, a smaller animal, in a way bigger problem, is the gray squirrel, which was introduced from the States and which is causing havoc amongst a lot of voodoo trees. And so last year in particular, it was noticeable. You would see lots of sycamores, mentioned sycamores earlier, lots of young sycamores which looked, which had, in the middle of the summer had yellow leaves and dying leaves. And those people said, oh, there must be a new disease. It's a new tree disease. But if you look closely, they'd been ring barked by squirrels, the squirrels had eaten, eaten bark, and the tops of the trees were completely destroyed. And so if you're trying to, as it were, sequester carbon and get big trees growing, this is pretty bad. But it also affects oak trees. In fact, it affects almost all broadleaved species. So gray squirrel control. Gray squirrels, if you walk through St. James's park in London, they're the most popular animal for tourists. Everyone wants to see them, to feed them, to take photographs. I mean, they are charming, but they're also plastic, a bit like humans. They're charming, but they're also destroying the earth. Let's destroy the earth. They're destroying the individual trees. Often they don't kill the tree. The tree will grow up again. But it's sort of. But it's not in a form which is productive.
- [36:33]
C
No. Yeah, squirrels, they're vermin. Here's my American farmer roots coming out like, like they're just so annoying. And they're everywhere. And sometimes, I mean, on college campuses in the U.S. they're, they're a menace. But the gray squirrels, deer, this is another thing. Everyone likes a deer. But overpopulated deer destroy everything. And it's so much easier to see this kind of like our relationship with this when we talk about wolves. Like, like right now in the Netherlands. The Netherlands, there's like a wolf that wanders around here occasionally from Germany. And like, farmers are up in arms and want the right to shoot them on site, which is so, so ridiculous on its face. But I understand, you know, this is forests and wilderness and then the agriculture. These are all places where humans interact with the world and we have to figure out a policy.
- [37:34]
B
Yeah, absolutely. This is in Italy. In northwest Italy, wolves have now come back. I take students out there, or have done for the last 30 or so years with colleagues to northwest Italy, to a small town in the hills. And there people talked about the fact that wolves were there in the 18th and early 19th century. They were there. There were things called wolf. There were archeological sites which called wolf pits. So they would dig wol a hole which the sheep. The sheep were used almost. The sheep were, as I mentioned earlier, were. There were thousands of sheep. But the sheep would be up on the hills and then on a sort of col, they would have the sheep on the sort of the end of the coal, as it were, of the hill. And then they would put in wolf pits, which are holes, deep holes, and they'd get the wolves to fall in, and then they'd be stoned or killed in that. And these were active into the 18th and early 19th century. Then they were just things people talked about. But then they came back, the wolves have come back. And old farmers I knew or know saw them or heard them, but now they're very much there. So they're. Now you see them in the roads and so forth. And now, of course, if you're trying then to reintroduce grazing for conservation purposes, no one wants to have the sheep or the goats. In fact, one farmer there did have goats, but they were all killed. So you have to. So it's a really complicated battle between the wolf, land management and so forth. Do you want to have tourism? So people go on wolf trails and say, wow, there's a wolf. Or do you want to have. But how will that affect the conservation of the open grasslands which have high biodiversity?
- [39:26]
C
Yeah, which comes back to this idea too, of us finding forests. Beautiful, right, that, you know, we. We go leaf peeping. People just want to, like, go out in their cars and look at the color of leaves. Which is kind of silly, if you like. Think about it. I love.
- [39:43]
B
Now it's. I'm intrigued you mentioned leaf peeping. Because I had not heard of this until last week when I saw an article in the newspaper, the Times, and it said leaf peeping at Sleepy Hollow has got out of hand or something. And. And apparently locals there are complaining because people, the roads are getting so full of people coming to look at leaves or indeed taking videos of themselves kicking up piles of leaves which people have carefully raked up because they want to protect their grass. And so I hadn't realized that leaf peeping was such a thing. It's a new word to me. So this is fascinating.
- [40:20]
C
It is. Where I'm from in the States is the Great White North. We're a woodland. I come from one of the places that's a woodland and lots of deciduous trees.
- [40:29]
B
Yeah.
- [40:29]
C
And we'll get tourists who come out of our cities and just want to go drive and look at trees. Just.
- [40:35]
B
Okay, well, that's it. Well, it's. But if you're used. Not used to the trees, they are wonderful. I mean, you know, of course that moves us into the idea of your ideas, Yana of nature therapy and the benefits of trees. And think you I'm now defending those selfless tourists. They're getting a sort of nature therapy looking at these leaves perhaps. I, I don't know.
- [40:59]
C
Which is another thing that we invented in the 19th century and seem to be coming back to is nature therapy.
- [41:06]
B
Absolutely, yeah. So people, I mean, I mean now you see, people seem surprised that going for a walk in the country or seeing trees and leaves and so forth seem to be beneficial. But Certainly in the 19th century they were very much seen as such. And so. And of course it's the whole aesthetics of trees and looking at trees. And of course, the great Walt Whitman. The great, he was mad about trees and wrote all about how trees. He thought that you could commune with trees and benefit from getting to know trees.
- [41:48]
C
Well, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we use. Tree hugger is what we call people who are deeply engaged to the environment. They're people who just love trees.
- [41:57]
B
Yes, absolutely.
- [41:58]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The idea that just going out into nature will heal you. It's. It's really old. But it seems to, you know, we can scientifically prove that it does things, whatever that means, that it does things for your blood pressure and, you know, your, your well being and just.
- [42:17]
B
Absolutely, yeah. Yes, the trees are. The thing is, trees are really good, but they can be quite bad too.
- [42:24]
C
Yeah, sure, of course, yeah. And they're sacred. So I would like to hear, and I would like our listeners to hear about the Glastonbury thorn. I'm sure the way I pronounce Glastonbury is hurting you deep inside Glastonbury.
- [42:39]
B
It's a little town in Somerset in England and it's a sort of fable. Well, I have to be Careful what I say. Well, I mean, no one knows. I mean, basically, one can say a lot. But there is a thorn which flowers the common hawthorn, which is one of the commonest trees, bushes, and can grow into quite a big sized tree in Britain, often planted miles and miles and miles. Thousands of miles of hedgerows have this, this, the hawthorn tree, and they have these wonderful flowers in May. It's often called May. May blossom and red berries at the moment. And it's good for firewood, very thorny, which means it's good for keeping stock under control. And so it's a very, very useful tree. But one tree growing in Glastonbury, called the Glastonbury Thorn, flowers in December. It's a sort of sport, and flowers in December. It became known as the Glastonby thorn and sort of developed. It became popular in the 18th and particularly the 19th century. Various myths. And one was that Joseph of Arithmea brought this and put the stick in the ground and it sort of. So it's become a holy tree. But the other thing is that these trees, they can live a long time, but if they become popular, like the other tree, the sycamore gap tree we mentioned, they become also a target of vandals and so forth. And so people have to. You have to take cuttings of the tree or grow trees from it, but you can still buy these trees from nurseries and they will flower some perhaps between November and February, but I think it's probably a sport which just has this peculiar ability to flower at this time in the winter. With global warming, of course, more and more things are showing this sort of second flowering at this time of year.
- [44:45]
C
Yeah. It's really weird for me watching just the way in my lifetime I'm seeing ecology change is very interesting and what trees are doing. So there's something there. It's. It's a little bit inexplicable. Things don't generally tend to bloom in December, so you can see how that becomes then sacred.
- [45:05]
B
Yes, yes, absolutely, yes. And then people want it. And then nurseries, garden centers would. In the 19th century, nurseries would be able to sell this and you could buy this example. And so there are a few around the country, but. Yes, but it is this sense of somehow a deep connection with someone who knew Christ, I suppose. And then in Somerset and near an ancient abbey, this all made a great story.
- [45:41]
C
Yeah. Which is so emblematic of the way we interact with trees. It's so interesting. And for forests and woodlands are on the rise. Yeah. There's more and more of them everywhere. In Europe.
- [45:54]
B
In Europe, yes. But of course in the world as we know in clearances in South America, for example, and in Southeast Asia. And of course the great threat of fire we haven't touched on. But fire is enormously and of course one dangerous. And if you. In the Mediterranean and California obviously and many parts of the world, fires are now people. I think people are partly more living in woodland areas because of the shade, because of the. And the ability to drive out and live in isolated houses overlooking the Mediterranean. Nothing more attractive. The pine trees. But of course if there's a forest fire they can be deadly. And one of the reasons, sorry, coming back seem to be referring to sheep quite a lot. But one of the reasons why sheep and goats were important was that they kept the ground relatively clear of woody vegetation. And so there would be trees and then a fairly open area. And so forest fires would probably go more quickly through woodland. And quite a lot of these trees have evolved to survive fire quickly to. But if you have dense young bushes and shrubs, that's much more dangerous. The same situation in Australia where fire over thousands and thousands of years kept areas much more open until Europeans tended to reduce that amount of fire. So fire can be good but it's very difficult to manage fire and difficult to convince people that you need as it were managed fire to reduce the threat of bigger fires.
- [47:42]
C
Yeah, the. Their controlled burn like fire is the trees are felled in a number of ways. But fire is a good one. Right. And fire. Fire can. They're not good one. But like fire helps keep a forest healthy often. And then.
- [48:00]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And of course. And of course what. What's also happened is that in the past all the. Or all. There were descriptions of people in Italy poems and also written descriptions from the 19th century, the 18th century of the people through poverty going and collecting all the dead wood. Any branch that had fallen down would be taken away and taken back for firewood that has stopped since the 1930s, 1950s anyway. And so you get an accumulation of dead wood which is like basically kindling spread across the forest floor. So when you get also a cigarette ash or just a reflection from a mirror, it doesn't have to be or some other factor. The fire will get sped and sped and then cause devastation. But it's a very expensive thing to keep woodland managed such that fire risk is reduced.
- [49:00]
C
Yeah. And when we talk about, you know, diseases in trees that weaken them and we have. Then forest becomes catastrophic.
- [49:10]
B
Yes, absolutely. You get the flood of diseases and of course, that's the global threat of diseases, as with the global threat of animals. Some animals you get insect pests and also other types of diseases. What became known as Dutch elm disease and ash dieback and many other diseases. These can be absolutely devastating. Other trees will grow up and sometimes trees do recover, but it does mean change. So I think often people see woodlands as fairly static things in the landscape. Fairly. Then you look out over the. You look out over the tree. I'm looking out at my office at a beech tree that was probably planted in 1798. I'm being specific because it's near a house which was built in 1798 and it's been there. It seems unchanging, but in fact, of course, everything's changed. The surroundings have changed and woods change and diseases come, Trees are felled. Actually, they're extraordinarily dynamic places.
- [50:14]
C
Yeah. But in our mind, we want them to be this place where we connect with the ancients.
- [50:18]
B
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
- [50:22]
C
All right. I think it's interesting to note that when we this point that forests are on the rise in Europe and in the us, in the wealthiest parts of the world, we're getting better, beautiful trees and we're supporting them and we're managing them, but at the expense of a lot of people. Right. There are a lot of forests that are being destroyed. So we can maintain, you know, our lifestyle in Europe.
- [50:50]
B
Absolutely, yes. So it's the. So, yes. I mean, is it moral, morally correct, as it were, rewild areas in the UK or Europe and say, yes, we want rewilding, we want to see, you know, nice animals. We want to see. We want to experience the wolf again. But is that a luxurious type of landscape? Whereas we're benefiting from the palm oil or the cheap, cheap, relatively cheap beef imported from other countries? Yes. So a bit, I suppose it's a bit like the sort of 18th century parks of Europe where you appeared in nature, but in fact that was all based on trade, dubious trade in many cases, but also the work of all those workers.
- [51:43]
C
Yeah, of course, yeah. That feels not the. The greatest place for us to close up our discussion, but I think probably one of the most apt. But tell me about the futures of woodlands in Europe. What do you think? What are we going to see?
- [51:59]
B
Well, I think there will be more. There will be. There's a great. Everyone seems to want more woodland. I think there's going to be more investment in different types of trees. I think one great thing is to plant a variety of trees or let through Natural regeneration. A variety of trees grow up. It was often seen for commercial purposes, better to have a large stands, large areas of a single tree so that when you could species of trees, so that when you felled it, it was easier and more efficient. But I think, I think increasingly people are seeing the risk of tree diseases and the risk of various other things. It's best to have a variety of trees within the same woodland area. They don't have to necessarily, they could be small patches of different fees. The other thing is to really, I think, more take greater care of the trees in city areas. So there are lots of areas of cities, areas around factories, areas around roads, areas around transport networks where no one seems to, as it were, manage the trees particularly. It's just a very expensive thing to do. But I think careful management of those areas or recognition that these, as it were, what might be seen as waste areas could have be very beneficial for trees and nature. That's important.
- [53:23]
C
I think that's good, that's optimistic. That's a nicer place to stay than global inequality and our continued persistence in creating it. That's great. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. So what's next for you? Will there be more work on trees?
- [53:43]
B
Yes, I think so. What's next to me? Tomorrow I'm taking 150 students on a walk around Nottingham. Not looking at trees particularly, but on looking at the urban geography. So that's particularly what's on my mind immediately. But generally speaking, I'm doing some work on introducing trees in the late 19th century, particularly Japanese and Chinese trees to the UK and how that was perceived. And I'm also interested in trees along rivers, so what are called viperian trees and how they should be managed. So if you're looking for flood control, people say, oh yes, those need to be cut back. If you're looking for nature conservation, people say, oh no, they should be left. If you're looking for fishing, there's a contrasting view. If you want to reintroduce beavers, you say, well, we don't cut them down, but the beavers will cut them down. So there's a lot. Dead wood in rivers has a sort of ecological issue. So how should rivers be controlled? How should trees be controlled along rivers strikes me as an interesting area for research and also of course, to go and plant some more trees.
- [55:02]
C
Excellent. Sounds wonderful. Oh, Charles, it's been a delight to talk to you today. Thanks so much for joining me.
- [55:09]
B
Thanks Ferns, for asking me.