It’s easy to be gloomy about the future of trees. Disease upon disease upon pest seem to descend upon us. It’s hard to think of a major Tree species in the UK not affected by some plague, or not in danger of being so (Hornbeam! Okay, there are some). But two days ago I was walking around a patch of countryside not particularly known for its trees, somewhere in the south of England, and I was amazed by the sheer number of impressive trees, huge trees, ancient trees. If we stand and gaze at them we remember that this is not even the first phase of globalisation they have encountered, and that the problems that seem bad on a human life-scale probably seem laughable to trees that have survived millions of years.

It is the loss of landscapes we love that upsets us, and so it should. There’s no doubt we should re-examine our desperate need to move crap around the world in the pretence that this improves our quality of life. At the same time, panic is also not useful, and it is good to remember that new landscapes will emerge over time. Elms, it is likely, disappeared from the UK once before, then made a comeback. The trees will always make a comeback, in some form or other. If they weren’t so resilient, they would hardly be with us still. The trees, you will note, are not panicking.