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Dear supporter,

Our beloved 'Hairy Oak' tree (as named by our group) is scheduled for execution tomorrow, cordoned off and flanked by grim-looking security guards. At the moment, two courageous women (one in tree, one at the trunk) are protecting the tree but the council have gone ballistic in their response to peaceful protest - for work not due to start until the Autumn.

We are devastated that Haringey Council have come back to finish off the chaotic felling works which began in February 2021 two years ago during covid. The community was outraged by the felling of more than 160 trees up and down the Parkland Walk by a group of totally unsupervised workmen with chainsaws.

We had been asking for a meeting for over a year to discuss which trees were still scheduled to go to try and get some negotiations going, but the council called us to a meeting 10 days before felling began last week. We has asked to see maps of the doomed '16 groups' of trees (10 trees around Mountpleasant Villas and 10 at Stanhope Bridge where most of trees will be felled) before the meeting, but were told no. So it was challenging, cold, rainy, trying to work out maps and where trees were, getting damp and having to think up questions and challenges on the hop. Deliberate tactics a cynic might think.

The green bridge at Stanhope was dismissed last summer as was deemed to be too expensive and unwieldy to build - almost half a million pounds had already been spent on the most basic concrete, ugly, urban bridge. We had been assured a new design would be considered by Mike Hakata, deputy leader of the council on climate and feel bitterly let down, as will all of you who kindly signed our petition. What feels so insulting to our intelligence is telling us that the council felling 10 trees at Stanhope will somehow make it a biodiversity paradise. Go figure. 

Wildlife needs wildness to flourish, mess and disorder, careful considerate, imaginative building structures, not treeless concrete bridges and resurfaced paths. 

15 years ago the Parkland Walk was a genuinely wild bit of north London, Haringey are turning it into a thinned out place that looks reduced and tired, they want to resurface it, probably have notions of 'tidying it up' -  what biodiversity and wildlife there was is fast diminishing.

We are sorry we can't bring you good news but our fight goes on for our borough's mature trees. We are working voluntarily outside work, life and family commitments because we care passionately for mature trees and their vital role in mitigating against the worst effects of the climate and biodiversity crisis. We are currently in a hearing process with the council to try to save trees from insurers - please consider donating something for our campaign work, https://gofund.me/649761ae

Warmly and in memory of the beautiful Hairy Oak Tree

The Haringey Tree Protectors

 Haringey Tree Protectors  

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Linktr.ee/treeprotectors

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