Haringey council has just announced that it plans to fell four mature oak trees in Queen's Wood, just because they are damaging a nearby property! No account has been taken of the amenity value of these trees, their value to the human community or the habitat they provide for countless birds, insects, etc. The decision is entirely because the council is being threated by an insurance company who don't want to pay the costs of underpinning the property concerned. Queen's Wood is a nature reserve, it is ancient woodland and it should be protected in law from claims such as these. The trees were there before the property was built and to fell them would create a disastrous precedent.

Mature trees are the treasure troves of the natural world, fundamental to biodiversity and irreplaceable, they clean our air a hundred times more effectively than a year-old sapling. We hear so much talk about how many new trees we are going to plant, but wouldn't it make so much more sense to start by passing laws that protect the far more important trees that we have already got? Hundreds of mature trees are targetted every year by insurance companies and by councils and builders, afraid of the possible actions of insurance companies.

What we are asking of Haringey is a stay of execution so that other possibilities can be explored, including campaigning for a change in the law to reflect the real value of these trees. As Chris Packham says, "We must fight for every single tree."