Everyone involved in this petition has been blown away by the amount of support that it has received and by just how many people care about the preservation of our irreplaceable ancient yew trees. We are now hoping to turn this groundswell of support into changes to the law to ensure the yews are properly protected.

We intend to present this petition both to Parliament and to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the coming months, along with a solid proposal for the law change we are seeking, to protect ancient yews.

Due to lack of Parliamentary time, we doubt that we will be able to pass a whole Act of Parliament dedicated to yew trees. Our idea is to follow a similar route to  how important hedgerows were afforded legal protection in the 1990’s. This was by way of a couple of sections being included in the Environment Act 1997, which gave the Minister the powers to make regulations to protect hedgerows. The subsequent regulations (The Hedgerow Regulations 1997) set out in some detail what hedgerows were protected and what this protection entailed. We believe a similar proposal could work well for protecting our ancient yews, as well as providing the possibility of protecting other species of ancient and veteran trees in the future. However, we are open to other ideas and refinements to this proposal. 

We would love to hear from anyone who can help in developing our briefing paper on the current issue of legal protection of ancient yew trees and our proposals for reform, and particularly from anyone with experience ( legal or practical) of the current tree protection regime or ideas for reform. It would also be useful to hear from anyone with legal skills who is able to assist in the drafting of our briefing paper and proposal for legislative change. If you would like to be involved in either of these aspects, please email enquiries@lawyersfornature.com

Paul Powlesland 
Barrister and Founder of Lawyers for Nature

Ancient yew pictured here is at Peterchurch