Why should we protect them?
We have a special responsibility to protect and care for ancient trees and to create new generations of ancient trees for the future.
Ancient trees are of historic interest and a valuable part of our cultural heritage. Each individual tree is a survivor from the past and a relic of a former landscape. They are a living document of past management practices and ways of life.
Who knows what momentous dramas these craggy faces have witnessed throughout their lives? What rare and unique wonders do their cracks and hollows hide?
Habitats with trees over 200 years old and a continuity of ancient trees into the past are very special – full of wildlife that is found nowhere else and of immense heritage and cultural value.
Ancient trees support life forms that can live nowhere else.
They are full of nooks and crannies, holes and dead and rotting wood. As the years go by they provide the perfect homes for thousands of species of plants, animals and fungi, including many rare and threatened species. Clusters of ancient trees are even more important because together all the trees will offer a really wide range of niche homes for lots of different specialist species in just one small area.
What makes ancient trees unique as a wildlife habitat, is the exceptionally species rich communities associated with wood decay and the bare surfaces of trunks, bough and roots.
So far, we have only scratched the surface in understanding the role ancient trees play in sustaining wildlife. Who knows what other wonders have yet to be discovered about ancient trees and the species that live in them?
Nowhere else in Northern Europe can you find as many large ancient trees and in such remarkable concentrations as in the UK. They help give our countryside a unique character and are as much a part of our heritage as stately homes, cathedrals and works of art. They also form much of our cultural ancestry, being a favoured subject of artists and writers over many centuries.
However they do not enjoy the same protection even as old buildings. There are 500,000 listed buildings in the UK, there may be as many ancient trees but, as yet, we don't really know.