Evolution and survival
The story of human evolution is profoundly marked by our ancestral relationship with trees. In his book, The Wood Age, Biologist Roland Ennos, masterly describes how every step of the way in our evolutionary history was directly influenced by skills that our ancestors developed through their interaction with trees.
Over 2 million years ago, skills such as nest making, the development of simple wooden tools to access food underground and the groundbreaking knowledge of how to make a fire, were all essential steps in our journey to become humans. The central argument of Ennos’ book is, in fact, to question the marginalisation of wood in the Three Age System developed by historians and anthropologists to describe the stages towards our emergence as Homo Sapiens Sapiens. After reading the book, one is indeed left wondering if wood was not in fact more important than stone and at least as important as bronze and iron in our anthropological history.
As always, when making sense of human evolution, it seems like it was our capacity to build powerful weapons to kill animals and our own kind that took centre stage, whilst magnificent inventions such as boats to travel and trade and housing to help us settle down and farm were relegated in importance. Even the bow and arrow, which first allowed our ancestors to bring large animals down, seems to stand in lower regard than the sparkling axes and swords of old.
With the exception of native tribes across the world, trees and their versatile resource of wood are still pretty much overlooked by societies today. And with the sudden rise of the Silicon Age, we have become almost estranged from nature, retreating in virtual realms and interacting less with each other and our surroundings. Whilst reading the Age of Wood, the paradox of modern progress became ever more evident: technological mastery has made us inept in basic hand crafting and, more concerningly, in survival skills.
Back in June 2023, I was fascinated by the news of the four Colombian children who survived 40 days in the Amazon rainforest after their plane crashed, thus killing the only two adults in the flight -the pilot and the children’s mother-. The children, aged 13, 9, 4 and 1 at the time, were members of the Amazonian Witoto tribe who deeply reveres the forest. The young children knew how to forage and how to build basic shelter using rainforest resources because this is knowledge they acquire from their tribe members from a young age. Essential survival skills are passed on matter-of-factly from one generation to the next, and this legacy is what kept the young children alive in the treacherous rainforest with all its looming predators: from jaguars to snakes to poisonous plants. I remember how that whole episode left me thinking about my role as a mother, so focused on providing the best education possible to my children, yet unable to teach them even the most basic survival skills, as I myself also completely ignore them.
Roots, belonging and the danger of erasure
Our disconnect from nature is making us miserable. Countless scientific studies prove it, even though, instinctively, we already know this. Technological advancement has facilitated consumerism and access to information to such an extent, that it has become a form of self-harm. Dopamine is keeping us distracted and, like any other drug, it is isolating us. We are becoming deaf to our intuitive call to go back to basics and we are losing touch with our own history and common ground as a species.
I find it concerning how so many people would readily accept a populist argument that puts the blame of our cultural identity crises on migrants and would yet feel nothing when seeing a tree with decades-long roots being cut down.
A tree is a projection of our extraordinary evolution, of our strength as a species and our capacity to exercise wisdom. When we allow or ignore acts of disrespect towards nature, we are submissively accepting to put our own kind at risk.
In the stunning HBO documentary, Trees and other entanglements, filmmaker, Irene Taylor, invites the audience to reflect on diverse stories that convey the depth of our human connection with trees. By far, the story that struck me the most was the one about author and environmentalist, Dr. Carolyn Finney. Finney grew up in a large estate in Westchester County, New York, where her father worked as a gardener for 50 years and tended to the beautiful landscaped gardens. To mark his 48th wedding anniversary, her father planted a weeping cherry tree in the estate grounds and gifted it to Finney’s mother. They recorded the tree with them standing in front of it in a photo taken on their last day of work in the estate, after it had been sold to new owners. In the documentary Finney narrates the heartbreaking moment when she found out, through communications with the new owners, that the tree had been cut down, thus truncating part of Finney’s own memories and roots. This story in particular made me look at trees and their legacy from a fresh new perspective, just as essential as the one presented by Ennos in The Age of Wood. Finney says about the cutting of the cherry tree with tears in her eyes:
“It’s personal! How do you not know the story of the people who cared for that land for 50 years? How do we not know the story? … somebody always cuts the tree. But it is not only the history of a tree, it is a history about us and who we are in relationship to those trees, the people tending to it, every single day, and who usually have the least amount of power in deciding what is important.”
From trees to tennis
I have been a resident in Wimbledon Park and Southfields, for nearly thirteen years. When you live here, it is impossible not to fall in the two-week Wimbledon Championships craze every summer. It is a fun and exciting time for us residents as we get to co-exist with the best tennis players in the world and get to host visitors from around the globe in our neighbourhood. I have attended the Championships a few times, through the years, and have always enjoyed the atmosphere of the event. It is very English and very classy. Many visitors dress in impeccable white, wear hats and drink Pimms to keep fresh in the summer warmth. All shops in Wimbledon and Southfields are decorated with tennis motifs and there is a general cheerful atmosphere in the air.
The Championships have been hosted in its current grounds in Church Road -a mere 10 minute walk from my house- since 1922. The grounds cover an extension of 42 acres, comprising 18 Championships grass courts, 20 grass practice courts and 8 American Clay courts. The Wimbledon grounds are bigger than the Roland Garros venue in Paris, which covers 34 acres, and slightly smaller than the 46.5 acre Billie Jean King Tennis Centre in New York, where the US Open is held after Wimbledon every year.
Wimbledon, as a town, has a much longer history than the tennis Championships, nonetheless. The owners of the land, since the first recorded residence in 1280, were always wealthy, attracted, apparently, by the hills that offered great views of the city and, of course, the proximity to London. The year of the Spanish Armada, in 1588, Sir Thomas Cecil built a house in Wimbledon and it is recorded that the park covered an area of 400 acres.
The estate kept growing and a whopping 1,200 acres of land was eventually inherited by Earl John Spencer, Lady Di’s 4th great grandfather, in 1744. It was he who hired the services of the prominent English landscaper Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown to inject his natural English style, large-scale and, above all, enduring landscape design to Wimbledon.
Since 1898 there has been a golf club in Wimbledon Park, which stands exactly between the current tennis Championship grounds and the local park. The golf club was initially owned by the Council, which sold the freehold to The All England Tennis Club (AELTC) in 1993. This purchase caused concern amongst residents, especially because the golf course is part of the green area which Capability Brown landscaped for Earl Spencer back in the mid 18th Century. Just for reference, Capability Brown’s landscapes across England have remained largely protected. Some outstanding examples are Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Chatsworth in Derbyshire and Sherborne Castle in Dorset among an astonishingly long list of amazing gardens across the country. (More information about this can be found through the links below).
In order to ensure that AELTC never developed the Grade II-listed parkland of the golf course, local residents pushed for a Covenant to be signed upon the sale. The organisation Save Wimbledon Park, highlights important aspects of the covenant signing in 1993:
“When Merton sold the land to the AELTC in 1993, they insisted that AELTC sign legal covenants assuring the public that there would be no development. John Currie, All England Chairman back then, stated: ‘We completely understand and support everyone’s determination to keep the land open and we purchased the land on that basis.’ Tony Colman, Merton Council Leader, said: ‘This council is resolute that the land will be retained as open space. We would not allow development of the site.'”
In December 2018, AELTC’s intentions of violating the 1993 Covenant started to show as they offered each and every single member of the Wimbledon Golf Club £85,000 (each) to acquire their lease and therefore take full possession of its 73 acres. As expected, money did the trick and, not long after the acquisition, the plans came to light: a complete redevelopment of the entire Championships grounds, using the golf course to build an 8,000 seat new court and another 37 grass courts.
Again, Save Wimbledon Park, summarises the environmental impact of the development well:
“the entire golf course will be excavated, infilled and levelled over 8 years, threatening protected priority habitats. Claims for biodiversity net gains have been challenged in expert analysis. Desilting the lake would cause serious pollution. 300 mature trees will be felled. Established trees are vastly superior to new saplings for carbon storage, heritage and biodiversity. A 150-year-old tree takes 150 years to replace.”
Amongst the mature trees in the golf course, there is apparently a 500 year old English Oak tree which, of course, predates Capability Brown’s landscape. There are also 5 other veteran oaks aged between 154 and 300 years old.
What truly matters
The members of the organisation Save Wimbledon Park have described the quest to protect our local landscape from AELTC’s construction plans as a “David vs Goliath battle.” It is true. There is no justification for cutting down 300 trees or for disrupting (and polluting) the everyday life of tens of thousands of residents for a period of 8 years. Yet, somehow, Merton council gave the expansion plans the green light and the Mayor of London, despite frequent babbling in the media about how much he cares about reducing pollution in the city, also gave them his blessing.
We live in these very strange times in which factual information is so easily accessible yet we somehow actively choose to overlook it, focusing instead, on the scandalous and the frivolous. Ennos states it well towards the end of his book: “In our continual striving to increase our material comfort and stimulate our senses with novelties, we have multiplied our energy use twentyfold in the last two hundred years.” The Tennis Championships take place once a year, for a period of two weeks only. That’s it. Except for a very select group of people, no one will benefit from a theme park sized Tennis Championship venue in a city that is already struggling with housing, green spaces and the cost of living.
In any case, it is about way more than the small few who will profit from the expansion plans, or the political party that will receive the most free tickets to the matches from AELTC, or even us, the residents of the land. The answer to what truly matters is in what we consider to be a legacy. There won’t be any money nor any audience to attend shows or matches if we don’t have a healthy planet to inhabit.
A tree, and most especially a veteran tree of over 100 years, is a quiet presence, a keeper of the stories of those who have tended to it or just admired it and a witness of the history of its time. A tree is the ultimate legacy and humanity is the best testament of that. It is no coincidence that Lancelot Brown, a hands-on gardener of humble origins, understood what really matters, even way back then. He worked with plants and trees after all, thus leaving behind a 250 year old legacy of enduring English gardens for humanity to enjoy.
Access the Save Wimbledon Park website here to learn about the campaign and/or to donate towards the legal costs of fighting for the protection of our neighbourhood’s Grade II listed parkland.
A wonderful book: The Wood Age by Roland Ennos – William Collins, 2021.
HBO Documentary Tress and other entanglements – Watch trailer
For an easy listen of Dr. Carolyn Finney’s weeping cherry tree story, access this website.
Read about Capability Brown and his gardens here.
Fantastic resource from the Friends of Wimbledon Park – Capability Brown’s Wimbledon Park, A History by Dave Dawson