EPA/EFECopyright: EPA/EFE

“It’s so grim, I felt sick, as so many people did, when I saw
it,” says writer and environmentalist Prof Robert McFarlane.

“It was a film star, it was a tree that ashes
were scattered under, marriages were made under it, it was a shelter for tired
walkers.”

He points out that it was chopped down on the eve
of the State
of Nature report‘s publication – an audit of how things are faring
for the living world in the UK.

“Nature is under attack and has been for a long time in these
islands,” he said, adding: “We have not looked after our woods well.”

But he added: “When you lose something like this, what a response
it’s pulled out – grief, poems, paintings, drawings, photographs, stories and
memories.

“The question is how do we now use that strength of feeling and
turn it to the good?”