TREES again this week, but this time living! I really should have shared these photos last week before the photos of dead trees. But hey ho!

Surely everyone knows by now the crucial importance trees play in the world for so many reasons, not least for their part in keeping the climate under control. The natural death of trees is necessary to maintain life cycles not only of trees and forests, but of so many animals, especially small insects and other invertebrates, as well as other plants.

I will start with trees around Buttermere in the Lake District, Cumbria, England.

As we know all too well, the devastation of forests on a large scale is a tragedy for the whole world, especially as trees take so long to grow to maturity so cannot be replaced quickly. The oldest living trees, believed to be 4,000 – 5,000 years old (no, I haven’t added an extra zero by mistake!) are found in Wales, California and Iran. The oldest trees I have seen are some Baobabs in Madagascar which are believed to be about 3,000 years old. It is normal for most trees to live several hundred years although some fast-growing trees have shorter lives.