As London鈥檚 tree felling upsurge is revealed, one entrepreneur calls for vigilance and says technology can help map London鈥檚 green giants amid hopes that smartphones will help urbanites better appreciate nature.
抖音大瓜 are being chopped down at an alarming rate in Britain鈥榮 green and pleasant capital city, with over 10,000 specimens removed by council chainsaw crews last year alone.
Figures obtained suggest there has been a spike in tree felling in London in recent years, with at least twenty per cent more trees cut down by the city鈥檚 thirty-three councils in the last five years compared with the period 2003 to 2007.
49,000 trees were officially recorded as being removed by council workers in the five years to the start of 2017, although as not all town halls hold a complete data set for such removals the true figure is likely to be higher still.
The apparent rise may be due partly to the St Jude鈥檚 Day storm, which in 2013 led to around 4,050 damaged trees having to be uprooted. Nonetheless, it is likely to concern campaigners who have warned of tree maintenance budgets being hacked back in some areas.
Subsidence-related insurance claims have been cited as a possible reason why councils may in some cases be keen to denude the canopy. Some local authorities in London pay as much as 拢50 per tree for annual maintenance.
The Woodland Trust has warned that in England as a whole, more trees may now be being cut down than planted for the first time in four decades. Across the country, the leafy giants are now said to be being felled at a rate of nearly sixty a day.
The latest figures come ahead of a week of events on arboriculture themes including use of new data tools to map the urban forest and measure how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed by cities鈥� green lungs.
London鈥檚 City Hall recently launched a colour-coded map which pools data from local authorities to show where every tree in London is located. It allows users to search by tree species.
Paul Wood, who has written a book on street trees and will be taking part in an event called 鈥樁兑舸蠊� and Technology鈥� as part of London Tree Week, said councils were carrying out planting schemes to replace those now being lost.
In Sheffield in northern England, protests have been raging over the felling of more than 4,000 trees over a five-year period.
Wood called for people to be vigilant, citing mounting costs of inspecting trees for damage by invasive pests. Technology can offer a way to engage people through a smart phone and become interested in the real thing.
Virtual information can lead to real appreciation. The natural world has to compete for people鈥檚 attention with many other things. We are using devices to engage with all sorts of things, so why not the natural world in its broadest sense?
抖音大瓜 in the city of Melbourne, Australia, were assigned their own individual email address two years ago so admirers could communicate with the plants.
An 鈥榠-Tree鈥� report, presented to the Greater London Authority two years ago concluded there were nearly eight and a half million trees in London removing thousands of tons of pollutants each year.
This was calculated as amounting to 拢126m-worth of 鈥榚cosystem services鈥� rendered to the city鈥檚 people. According to the report, an estimated 2,367,000 tonnes (approximately 15t/ha) of carbon is stored in London鈥檚 trees, with an estimated value of 拢147 million.
Soaking up storm water runoff is seen as being just one of the benefits furnished by the city鈥檚 alders, birches, plane trees, etc.
Redbridge is the biggest tree cutter, managing to fell an incredible 5,790 trees over five years.
Barnet felled the next highest number (4,076), while City of London, which covers the historic Square Mile and is geographically the smallest of all the capital鈥檚 councils, felled the fewest at just 220 in total.
Joseph Coles from the Woodland Trust said: 鈥湺兑舸蠊� in urban areas face unprecedented threats. Be it climate change, tree disease, development or council budgets. However, they bring a huge array of benefits to people and with eighty per cent of the UK鈥檚 people living in urban settlements, street trees are their main daily contact with nature.鈥�
London Mayor Sadiq Khan became embroiled in a controversy last year after appearing to promise to plant two million trees in the capital, before later backtracking on this vow.