A few months ago we had reached our target of 10,000 signatures to this petition in 30 days. I thought that was it and that it would simply go to Parliament, be discussed and being such a very reasonable petition, the law would simply be changed to give the oldest trees in the world legal protection. It seems I was being naive and even a government petition which gained 100,000 signatures was not guaranteed to be heard in Parliament! As with any issue of course there are also certain powers and vested interests, which may not be obvious, who want to keep things the way they are. The upshot of this is that although we got together a powerful coalition of interested parties such as the Tree organisations, other allied organisations, tree writers and politicians, I was advised that a lot more work was needed to raise awareness of this issue before taking the next step.

The headlines of the Daily Mail the same day convinced me this was the right thing to do. A cattle trough, a thatched bus stop and a pub sign had all been granted Grade 2 Protective Status! No question! but no ancient trees! Just goes to show where the nation's heads are at! So much needs to change for people to see what is really of ultimate importance in our world! particularly considering the role trees have in the whole issue of preventing climate change!!

In the gap between Part 1 of this campaign and what is now Part 2, we have also had the chance to update the list of ancient yews (yews between the ages of 2 and 5,000 years of age) by another 40 yews, mainly yews not in churchyards. Follow this link to check them out  - http://www.janisfryart.co.uk/ancient_yew_tours.htm#yew

Please share this on social media and get all your friends and contacts to start signing and talking about our ancient yews. The largest collection of ancient yews on earth are in Britain! Why not go visit one in your area over Christmas? I can't think of a more lovely thing to do. Perhaps you will too.