SPECIALIST TREES
TREES ARE PROTECTORS
- not threats
Mark Hinsley argues we need to see the role of trees as helping and protecting us and not worry overly about how their presence might cause accidents In 1926, the first year in which road traffic fatalities were recorded, 4,886 people lost their lives in a total of over 124,000 crashes. Between 1951 and 2006 a total of 309,144 people were killed on our roads and 17,600,000 were injured. Even in our present times of much safer roads and vehicles 1,810 people lost their lives last year and 182,560 suffered injury. Last year there were 31,000,000 cars on our roads â that works out at one nasty incident for every 168 cars. How many of you have got rid of your car because you donât like the risk? Between 1999 and 2009 there were 64 fatalities in the UK relating to trees. The average number of people ending up in A&E due to accidents involving trees is 55 per year. This compares to 262,000 due to footballs, 10,900 from childrenâs swings, 6,000 when putting on oneâs trousers and 2,200 because of wheelie bins. According to the Forestry Commission, there are 3,814,000,000 trees in the UK â and 123,000,000 of them are not in woodland. Even if we pretend that none of the accidents occurred in woodland, that works out at one nasty incident for every 2,016,393 trees. How many of you have got rid of a tree because you didnât like the risk? And it is not even as simple as that: Hands up all those who think that cars will protect you from the effects of rising urban temperatures as our climate changes? Rising temperatures in towns and cities are of great concern to people with respiratory problems. The phrase urban heat islands may be familiar to you; or perhaps you have noticed that the weather forecasters give different night time temperatures for our towns than they do 12
for the countryside â and the town ones are always higher? Hard surfacing exposed to full sun during the day absorbs heat and radiates it back out again at night holding up urban temperatures even after the sun has gone down. The shade from trees is one of the very few things that helps to control urban temperatures, making both day and night more tolerable during hot spells. Hands up all those of you who think cars will protect your property from storms? Yes, I did say âprotectâ. Something we learnt in 1987 was that people were at far greater risk in their homes from falling masonry than they were from falling trees. Most people would be surprised to discover how many trees growing around buildings were originally planted as wind breaks. In the past they recognised how dangerous high winds can be around buildings. They knew that you are much less likely to survive the roof of your house blowing off than a tree blowing over on to it, and a falling roof tile can be more dangerous than a falling branch. The anthropomorphic bit: When you were young maybe you had a bigger brother or perhaps a big friend? This person did seem a little frightening and you were a bit wary at times, but you knew that, if any nasty people tried to hurt you, your big friend would protect you. That is the role of your tree; it seems a bit frightening at times â but mostly it protects you. So if you call me out to look at a perfectly healthy tree that you want me to try and have removed just because you donât want the risk from it- you may be in danger â but it wonât be from the tree! Mark Hinsley is from Arboriculture Consultants Ltd www.treeadvice.info
Country Gardener