Dartmoor forest by Gabriel Hemery

For my short story in Arboreal (Little Toller Books, 2016) I decided to write from the perspective of an old man looking back on the transformation of Dartmoor due to the withdrawal of farming subsidies and application of visionary environmental policies. I drew a couple of sketches that didn’t make it into the book.Continue Reading

Charter for Trees, Woods and People

Our life on Earth is entwined with trees, even if we’re not always aware of their importance. It often takes a special moment for us remember the significance of something we can so easily take for granted. The Year 2017 is one such moment for trees and forests in the UK, this being the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the Forest.Continue Reading

Environmental change is impacting Britain’s trees and forests with increasing frequency and severity, caused by human influences and/or natural ecological processes. Somerset owner William Theed replanted with different conifer species when Japanese larch in his woodland was the first in the UK attacked by Phytophthora ramorum. Photo Gabriel Hemery. An important national surveyContinue Reading

There remain many botanical parts of trees to be drawn and a few whole trees to be depicted by Sarah Simblet, yet a forest visited this week by the authors will be one of the last whole treescapes to feature in The New Sylva. The authors visited Brechfa Forest GardensContinue Reading