Opposite: The Major Oak, in Sherwood Forest (credit: Marcin Floryan CC2.5). Above: Tree school aims to inspire young people to become the guardians of trees (credit: Rob Lowe). Right: Rotting trees are home to whole communities of creatures.


It’s a four-year project and will


begin by working with the Ancient Tree Forum and other partners to select the trees to be cloned using broad criteria that include how much at risk they are, their historical value, and their wider value to the landscape. By their very nature, ancient oaks are home to rot and fungus; fortunately, Cornwall College has one of the few laboratories in


country will enable us to study how they respond to different climates and conditions, as well as provide future habitats for other life. It’s not just about the science. These


groves will provide somewhere for people to visit and discover more about these great trees. Ultimately, they may have a deeper cultural value as they become a point of pride and perhaps the locus of stories as the years unfold.


These new groves of trees will have an innate genetic value


Europe that is licensed to propagate infected material and work will begin in earnest in autumn 2017 to select and clone the first trees. These new groves of trees will


have an innate genetic value as a collection of naturally occurring wild trees that have evolved – and survived – over hundreds of years. Transplanting them across the


The groves could also provide


a focal point for another initiative Archangel has developed. Tree School aims to inspire young people to become the guardians of trees by learning to care for them, study them, and of course climb them. Like the trees themselves, Tree


School will grow slowly. The first in the UK will be close to home, starting


this winter here at Eden and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. But its ambition is global. Outside the USA it will fall to Eden to spread the idea using local ancient trees in those territories where we have an emerging presence. Tree School not an idea that Eden and Archangel wish to own. Sir Tim Smit is keen to emphasise this point: ‘We would prefer to see it as an idea which is freely franchised, but where the originators commit themselves to constant improvement in teaching the model to others.’ It’s hoped that the seeds of this


project, initially funded by Eden and Heligan, will be spread far and wide, creating new generations of trees and people to care for them.


Find out more about ancient trees in your area with the Ancient Tree Inventory: www.ancient-tree-hunt.org.uk/project/hunt


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