Sycamore

There's a big sycamore cull going on near me. I find it so depressing to see beautiful, healthy trees being cut down - makes me cry. Here's the rationale, on a sign pinned to a recently severed trunk:

It says the sycamore isn't native but it IS native to central Europe and with our changing climate, it obviously thrives here. I've read that it may have been brought over by the Romans and that seems pretty established to me. The sign also says the sycamore doesn't support much wildlife, yet I know it supports many aphid varieties that in turn allow birds to thrive. Dormice also eat the aphids and we know how endangered a species they are. What bloody interferers we are, messing up the environment, then looking for fixes when it all goes pear-shaped.



Apparently the council (if they're still the ones in power in a few months time, and will they have the funds available, and will people allow the money to be spent on tree-planting when their day-centres are being closed down?) will replant with 'native' species like oak. That's great, but an oak will take 30 years to get established and begin to host all the wildlife it has the potential for. Meanwhile, can we really afford to lose the carbon-dioxide absorbence of any tree? We should be planting up areas that are not suited to growing veg and cereals but which are currently grazed by the grossly inflated numbers of sheep and cows bred for meat.
It feels like we've got our priorities all wrong. I was thinking 'this is just sick' when I saw the trees falling and into my head came the name of a boat, passed on the Shropshire Union, called 'Sycnamore'!