The Ash and the Beech, By Richard Mabey

 

Chrisopher Hirst
Friday 21 June 2013 17:35 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

First published in 2007 as Beechcombings, this challenging work on "the drama of woodland change" has gained added impetus with the arrival of Chalara, the fungus that threatens the beech.

Mabey is sanguine: "There's a kind of anthropomorphism in our worries, as if trees responded to disease, age, death in the same ways as us. They don't."

This robust view of "entirely natural events" is supported by Mabey's revelation about the limits of our knowledge: "The mystery of how beech… spread to England and dispersed throughout the south remains."

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in