Guardians & Carbon | April 2026
As Spring blossoms into our hedgerows and forests, this month’s theme centres around the (welcome) change in season and how our relationship with the most ancient and wisest giants of the natural world will prove essential in securing a future for all living things...Trees.
The UN has estimated that around 12 million hectares of forest are being destroyed globally every year. Despite commitments to stop forest clearing, we are still operating at 63% above the rate required to reach zero-deforestation by 2030. This included over 6 million hectares of primary rainforest lost in 2024 – around 18 American football fields per minute. (World Resources Institute Global Forest Review.)
What does this mean for the UK?
The State of the UK’s Woods and Trees 2025 report by the Woodland Trust provides an in depth report on the current state of our woodland, the improvements and regressions we’ve seen over recent years, and explains why regulating how our woodland is planted and maintained is vital to the UK’s ecosystem. You can read the full report here.
“The UK's total woodland cover is currently 13.5%, which is well below the EU average of 38%. This is 10.3% in England, 8.6% in Northern Ireland, 19.4% in Scotland and 15% in Wales. The UK has set targets to plant more trees and increase woodland cover to 19% by 2050, but these targets are currently failing to be met… Data from the ancient woodland inventories (AWIs) shows that this rare habitat covers 609,990ha (2.5% total land cover) of the UK. 364,200ha of this is in England (2.8% of England's land cover), 2,700ha in Northern Ireland (0.2% of NI land cover), 148,150ha in Scotland (1.9% of Scotland's land cover) and 94,940ha in Wales (4.6% of Wales land cover). Many of these woods are small, fragmented and isolated making them vulnerable. Of the UK's total ancient woodland, around 40% is estimated to be plantation on ancient woodland sites (PAWS)... Plantations on ancient woodland sites were established in the 1900s in response to post-war timber shortage fears. They have damaged these ancient woodlands, as the light needed by native species was no longer available under the dense conifer canopy.”
Downey, H., Aizlewood, S., Ash, A., Bavin, S., Burton, V., Chemais, M., Crawford, J., Gosling, R., Hewitt, D., Hugi, M., McHenry, E., Jackson, H., Nichols, C., Pyne, E., Reed-Beale, N., Underwood, F., Walsh, T. (2025) State of the UK's Woods and Trees 2025, Woodland Trust.
It’s clear that, despite improvements, the UK is failing to meet the commitments made to our woodland, with only 45% of planting aims achieved between years 2020 and 2024. England’s government also declared the ambitious target of restoring 4,000-6,000 hectares of ancient woodland every year, yet in 2024 only 6 hectares made the cut (excuse the pun) to receive the grants necessary to support restoration efforts.
A study by Nature Portfolio estimates that we cut down 15 billion trees a year, and the global number of trees has fallen by 46% since the beginning of civilisation.
But…
Why should we care?
Woodland, and trees in general, are vital to the continuation of life on our planet. They act as natural flood barriers, their canopies offer shelter from harmful UV rays, they provide varied habitats for animals (including endangered species) and, of course, they absorb carbon dioxide, becoming living carbon stores. The Woodland Trust reported that ancient woodland in the UK held 77 million tonnes of carbon in 2021 and was absorbing 1.7 tonnes every year.
Carbon dioxide plays an important role in our survival. Without it, the temperature of the Earth wouldn’t reach above freezing. Too much of it, and temperatures rise to an unsustainable degree: glaciers melt → sea levels rise → the ocean absorbs too much CO2, lowering the PH of seawater until it becomes too acidic to accommodate life.
Carbon is also hazardous to our own health, with high levels causing respiratory problems, cognitive decline, headaches and, at concentrated levels, death.
The current levels of CO2 are 150% higher than they were in 1750, and they are rising 100 times faster than is natural. (NOAA, climate.gov)
Without our trees and forests doing all the heavy lifting… Well, we’d be toast.
Besides being our main protector against the environmental hellscape knocking at our door, trees have held a sacred significance in the human psyche since the earliest of our mythologies and folklore.
Sacred Trees
Some of the oldest and most well-known tree myths centre around the concept of the Tree of Life (also referred to as World Tree or Axis Mundi). Yggdrasil, the tree at the centre of the Norse religion, is arguably the most commonly recognised example of the tree of life across the UK and Scandinavia – but we had our own version in ancient Britain, too.
With roots that connected the nine realms, Yggdrasil survived Ragnarok (the Norse apocalypse myth that took out a good chunk of their pantheon of deities) to build a world without corruption (perhaps with a little help from the dead in Freya’s Folkvangr… but that’s a discussion for another time). In the British Isles, we celebrated the Oak tree as our very own Yggdrasil – Crann Bethadh in Gaelic. Druidic culture considered oak trees to be portals to both the above and the below; they symbolised strength, wisdom and longevity.
“The Druids – for so their magicians are called – held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, always supposing that tree to be the oak. But they choose groves of oaks for the sake of the tree alone, and they never perform any of their rites except in the presence of a branch of it.”
Pliny the Elder on his experiences with the Celts of Gaul.
In Ireland, there were five sacred, guardian trees which watched over the provinces and signified sovereignty, wisdom, and spirituality: Eo Mugna, Bile Tortan, Eo Rossa, Craeb Daithí, and Craeb Uisnig. The sacred trees of Ireland were felled either physically or symbolically when the migration of Christianity from the continent shifted the island’s spirituality towards monotheism. This was no more keenly felt than by one of Ireland’s principal and most powerful deities, Brigid. She was synonymous with the sacred oak which covered the site at Cill Dara. Now known as Kildare Cathedral, it’s famous for the conversion of temple to monastery, goddess to saint – Brigid to St. Brigid of Kildare.
I would be entirely remiss if I didn’t mention here a tree so rooted in our history, modern culture, and landscape that its illegal felling caused an uproar from Scotland to Cornwall: The Sycamore Gap tree. Planted in the late 1800’s in a natural dip along Hadrian’s Wall, Northumberland, it saw the rise and fall of seven British monarchs, and starred in several films – most memorably Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (where it was supposed to be in the rough vicinity of Sherwood Forest… Robin, as it turns out, was not very good at directions.)
On 28th September, 2023, the news broke that the Sycamore Gap Tree was felled overnight. While we still don’t know what possessed the poor little men responsible (both in their thirties, I might add) to commit such an offense to nature, Mrs Justice Lambert, the judge presiding over their trial, said a "major factor" was "sheer bravado", and that the men got "some sort of thrill" from what they had done and then "revelled in [their] notoriety".
Fortunately, both men were handed prison sentences in payment for their thrill-seeking and bravado. One later commented that the public were acting as if they had committed a murder. And it’s true – we did. Perhaps our pagan, tree-loving roots have held fast longer than we thought?
The Challenge
So, without further ado, I present your April Penasium challenge. As ever, answer these questions through whichever medium speaks to you – poets, artists, photographers, story-tellers and riddlers are all welcome.
1. How old is the ancient tree?
2. Why is it protected?
3. What will happen if it is felled?
Further Reading & Places of Interest
Books
The Wisdom of Trees, Max Adams
Gossip from the Forest, Sara Maitland
The Almanac, A Seasonal Guide, Lia Leendertz
The Little Book of Trees, Herman Shugart and Peter White
Websites
Campaign to Protect Rural England
Native Woodland Trust (Ireland)
Places
Croft Castle, Herefordshire, National Trust (in particular the Ancient Tree Walk)
Kielder Forest, Northumberland
Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
The New Forest National Park, Hampshire
Hatfield Forest, Essex, National Trust
St John’s Wood, Co. Roscommon (Ireland)