Arbor Day: Things to Know About the Holidays Celebrating Trees
Arbor Day began in Nebraska in the late 1800s. This is everything you need to know about every holiday about trees and nature.
LONDON – Park rangers were “visibly upset” when they discovered the victim’s body in a grassy beauty near an ancient wall built by Roman emperor Hadrian almost two thousand years ago.
Prosecutors allege that the two men traveled to a remote World Heritage Site on September 27, 2023 on a wild, swelling hill in northern England. They brought a chainsaw and captured the murder in a rough video. The footage shown to the ju apprentice outlines a person equipped with the tool as a weapon. It lasts 2 minutes and 41 seconds.
Eight months later, even if the victim was a tree, parts of Britain are still heartbroken by the horrifying murder. Defendants in the case – Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Calzars, 32, of Cambria, England, pleaded not guilty to criminal damage when the trial was held on April 28th. The trial is expected to last for two weeks. Judge Christina Lambert told the ju judge that the case was about one tree chopped up by a chainsaw. She said that if they are familiar with it, they need to put aside any feelings they may have about the “sycamore gap” tree.
But the Sycamore Gap tree says Adam Cormack of Woodland Trust, a conversation charity, has more ancient trees than other parts of Europe. Over 200,000, according to Trust’s Ancient Tree Inventory database. Another estimate by the University of Nottingham and the Woodland Trust suggests that the actual number of ancient and veteran trees defined as ages 150 or older in the UK could range from 1.7 million to 2.1 million.
“Maybe it depends on what the trees represent for us,” Cormack said. “Endurance, longevity, history, heritage – they are all pretty essential to the British national identity. These ideas may not be inherent to the UK, but here they are strong. We are a small island. We are surrounded by history wherever we go.”
For many, the Sycamore Gap Tree was a landmark and icon of memory, creating memories and marking time. The tree was planted in the late 1800s and was estimated to be nearly 200 years old when it was cut down. It stood along Hadrian’s walls, at the center of the prominent dip of the landscape. It was a place for the first kiss, marriage proposal, birthday celebrations, and intimate rituals. The tree won the UK National Tree of the Year Competition in 2016, and its scenic location was a popular spot for hikers, photographers and stargazers.
“I know a gentleman who sprinkled his wife’s ashes onto a wooden base because it was such a significant place for her,” said Steve Blair, manager of the family’s pub and hotel. “When the Sycamore gap was cut down, it landed near where her ashes were sprinkled. He really finds it uncomfortable, right?”
Country Northumberland accommodations have long adopted the silhouette of the Sycamore Gap Tree as part of their logo. Blair said it is not yet clear how the tree indentations will ultimately affect his business. However, reflecting the enduring popularity of the tree as a destination, he has a world map on a wall where visitors can pin, allowing him to track where and how far they traveled. Blair believes that there are probably pins in every country.
“Many Europeans. A lot of Americans and Canadians. Samoa, China – all-out,” he said.
Sycamore Gap: The “Prince” of Trees
Sycamore Gap Tree was also famous for its Hollywood.
It was featured in the 1991 film Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves and starred actors Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. The film plays Alan Rickman – a livestock to feed a hungry family, chased by a soldier along with a dog to steal a Nottingham sheriff. The boy hides an aloft in the branches of the Sycamore Gap Tree. His pursuers take out the shaft and cut down the tree before being saved by Robin’s Robin (Costner) and his trusty bodyguard, friend and advisor Azem (Freeman). The National Trust, an heritage and conservation organization that manages the land around the trees, says that when worshippers visit it with their children, they often try to recreate a scene from a film where the boy hides under a stunning canopy.
“It wasn’t just a tree,” said Sarah Dodd, a British lawyer specializing in tree law.
“It was a national treasure.”
Dodd said cases involving trees would reach the district court quite regularly.
However, these cases tend to involve conflicts and minor vandalism among neighbors. She said this is different as criminal prosecutions were being filed by state agencies working with police and courts to keep the people safe. Dodd described the investigation into the Sycamore Tree Gap as “important.” It has at least 15 witnesses, including Park Rangers and 40,000 pages of evidence.
It also includes data and messages from the phone, license plate numbers captured on CCTV, “trophy” wedges taken from the Sycamore Gap Tree examined by forensic botanists, and rough videos shown to ju umpires showing what appears to be cut at the base of a large tree.
Sycamore Gap Tree – One of the men accused of cutting down Graham told police he was framed as part of a feud. Others – Carruthers said they don’t know how to operate a chainsaw.
Dodd said criminal prosecutions in the UK are extremely rare, as are the possible prisons for such crimes. If the pair is convicted and received the biggest penalty, they could face it in the bar 10 years later. She said the case was unprecedented because it was probably “pretty extraordinary” from a legal standpoint.
Sycamore Gap: The moment of “Princess Diana”
Edward Hope agreed to that characterization.
He is a retired police officer who established his second career as a content creator on YouTube. Hope is making videos about the outdoors, politics and local history of and surrounding Newcastle, a northern England city that is about a 45-minute drive from Sycamore Gap Tree. He documents the case and follows the trial.
Hope said that not everyone in Britain is “shocked and furious” by the destruction of the trees. One of his recent videos entitled “Sycamore Gap Trial – Why not “Just a Tree”” hints at it. Hope said the comments on his video were “roughly split” between people who are angry about logging and those who haven’t seen what all the fuss is, questioning whether the famous prosecution was a valid use of taxpayers’ money.
Hope is not one of them.
“When I woke up and heard about Sycamore Gap Tree, I felt the same way as when I heard Princess Diana had been killed in a car accident. I woke up to the news and my jaw hit the floor,” he said. Her funeral was seen by over 2 billion people.
Still, the Sycamore Gap tree was far from the oldest tree in the UK. According to Woodland Trust, an yew tree named “Fortingall,” it is thought to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. Standing in a church garden in Scotland. Visiting Scotland’s Tourism Bureau says it may even be nine,000 years old, making it one of the oldest creatures in all of Europe.
The Tree Murder Attempt
In recent weeks, another case of ancient trees having an early end has made headlines in the UK.
The CEO of pub and restaurant chain Toby Carvery apologized after a 500-year-old oak tree was cut down outside one of its restaurant in North London. The company said it mistakenly believes that logging is necessary to prevent accidents. However, local governments described the tree as a “great specimen” that lived for centuries.
Also, Britain is not the only country to tackle strange murders, including trees.
In May 1989, the attempted murder of a 500-year-old tree known as the “Treaty Oak” in Austin, Texas, was brought to the country by a man named Paul Steadman Cullen, making global news. Prosecutors alleged that Karen tried to poison the tree with herbicides as part of an occult ritual to undermine his enthusiasm with counselors at a drug clinic. Karen was convicted of tree poisoning, sentenced to nine years in prison and paid a $1,000 fine. He served for three of those years. When he was released, Karen moved around California. He passed away in 2001.
The tree survives and today it is located on the northeast corner of Baylor Street and Sixth Avenue in Austin.
Blair, manager of the twice-brewed inn, said that despite the Sycamore Gap Tree no longer exists, the logo of the business he manages will remain the same. He said that when he visited the place the tree once endured in the last week of April, he saw a small green bud on the side of the stump that showed it was still alive.
He doesn’t know if the Sycamore Gap Tree will grow back to its former tree. If so, it will probably take hundreds of years. Blair said he hopes visitors will come and see what was still there. From a litigation perspective, he said the most important thing is to find out why someone cut down such a special tree.