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More than just a tree hugger
Four years ago, after finishing a spell abroad in Paraguay, my own fascination with biodiversity had become fully fledged. As a research intern just out of university, I had spent an immensely...
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Bewitching baobabs
The baobabs of Madagascar are arguably the world’s most enigmatic trees. Found in the dry southern and western parts of the island, their wide trunks and stubby branches protrude out of the Malagasy...
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Tall, stripy and mighty: introducing the African zebrawood
Mount Cameroon provides an impressive setting for meeting a remarkable tree. The highest mountain in Central Africa, it also holds the title of being the region’s most active volcano. Below its bare...
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Meeting the green giant of Sabah
Like two whirling gyroscopes, a pair of gibbons circled the huge emergent tree. With reckless power and precision, the pair made gravity defying swings in smooth, graceful arcs, as they flew around the...
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Into the valley of the shadow of death: disaster planning for the remarkable...
The great paradox of my job is that we journey to some of the most beautiful places on Earth because they are at risk of destruction. In our quest to aid the conservation of some of the world’s most...
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Tales of tree conservation
Fifteen years ago the world’s tree species received their first, long overdue, health check-up by the conservation community. Trees proved to be awkward patients: close to 100,000 species were on the...
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Getting to the root of the issue: giving the Niedzwetzky apple a helping hand...
From the relative lowlands of Bishkek we spiralled upwards towards a high mountain pass, breaking the snow line. With a population only one tenth that of the UK, but with a similar land area, much of...
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Celebrating the world’s Critically Endangered trees
When challenged to make a case for tree conservation, it can be all too easy to count on some well used facts and figures. To set the scene I could refer to the 100,000 tree species thought to inhabit...
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‘Mother of the forest’: why local enthusiasm could be the baobab’s saviour
After driving through the eroded highlands of central Madagascar, we descend to the western plain and see the first Grandidier’s baobabs (known locally as Renala) towering like skyscrapers over the...
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Tree conservation for zoologists
The world’s trees are in urgent need of assistance. With more than 9,000 species sliding towards extinction, there is an ever growing need to take action to halt or abate the decline of wild...
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Embracing America’s love affair with trees
I arrived in the United States at a perfect time of year to see, celebrate and promote the conservation of threatened trees. Spring had sprung, and Washington DC’s cherry trees had decorated the...
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Wooden personalities: how I learned that trees are totally remarkable
Trees. Until a couple of months ago, I thought trees played three main roles in the field of conservation biology. First, as components of animal habitat, providing food and shelter for other...
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Finding ways forward for charismatic megaflora
On close inspection, trees reveal all sorts of secrets. In 2015 alone, scientists have discovered that different species communicate and send food to each other through their root systems, that...
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Restarting the regeneration game
In a ramshackle restaurant in Ziyuan town, Guangxi, three botanists wait patiently for me to finish my breakfast. Ignoring the noodles slipping between my chopsticks and splattering the table around...
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Longing for a lost forest
Today I woke up with a strong sense of what can only be described as ‘saudade’: “a longing for all that I have not seen”. I miss the great forest that I never had the chance to truly know. I long for...
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