Why are old trees important?
• Old trees- the living and the dead- are essential to keep an assorted biodiversity of flora and fauna which get fed from dead wood or take refuge in their cavities and fissures (plants, fungus, insects, birds, bats, etc.) • Old trees are part of our history, they live for human generations and in occasions they are associated to people or special facts. • They have an aesthetic value in themselves and they take part of the ancestral countryside of our land. • They make up a genetic reserve of ancient trees which may not be in younger trees. Why are old trees threatened? • Because they are cut to obtain wood, to avoid branches falling or to change the use of the ground. • Because they are considered worthless so they are cut • Because they are wrongly thought to lodge pests and they suffer from healthy cuts. • Because of changes in the traditional way of forest management (for example giving up the standard practice of pollarding. • Because the traditional ways of cattle raising have
