Dear Supporters,

This is probably the final Update of this Campaign.

I’m sorry to have to tell you that 3 years on, and despite the fact that it has received such huge support, we have failed in our aims to gain legal protection for ancient yews in Britain. This is due to the Church which owns most of these extraordinary immortal trees, believing the yews are safe with them and not agreeing that legal protection is necessary or in their interests. This is despite the increasing numbers of churches becoming redundant and disused, threatening the safety of our ancient trees. As you might know the Church can do as it likes on its own land and has its own law called Canon Law, which is over and above the law of the land. Our Barrister therefore understandably said there was little point in taking this any further.

A separate hand-written petition was sent to the Senedd (the Welsh Parliament) as they do not receive digital ones but they had little enthusiasm for the Campaign either. This is sad as Wales has more ancient yews than anywhere else in Britain and Wales could have made a name for itself internationally as the Land of Ancient Yews. I find this lack of interest even self interest, extraordinary. In the end as churches close and buildings (not usually churchyards) are sold off, the protection of our yews will be down to individuals like Alison Goulbourne of the Gwenfrewi Project, who bought the church at the ancient historic site of Gwytherin, pictured here, to keep an eye on our fantastic heritage yew trees. Sadly, not all of the new owners of yew sites are as keen on the yews as she is and look simply to develop these redundant places. I have to say it is unlikely many other countries with the largest collection of ancient, oldest living trees would have left them unpropteced. It says a lot about our values in this country. Property before Nature.

So all we can do now is to unofficially look after the ancient yews, adopt an ancient yew near us, keep an eye on it, keep the ivy off it, and visit it regularly so it is not neglected. Above all love and cherish these ancient trees left to us by our ancestors..

During the course of this Campaign I wrote over 30 updates giving information and anecdotes about our ancient yews which you will find if you scroll to the end of each update. If you

would like to know more about our ancient yews, my book ‘The Cult of the Yew. Tree of Life, Mystery and Magic’ is to be published by John Hunt Publishing late next year.

I want to thank everyone who took part in this campaign. We may not have won but at least people are now more knowledgeable and aware of our ancient yews, making them less likely to go missing. Don’t forget if a yew appears to be dead it will more than likely return to life, in it’s own good time.