Just prior to Christmas, Alex W, who lives in a Housing Association property in Hastings, told his mother that he was very upset. She asked him why and what he would like to do about it. His reply was that he would like to write it all down into a ‘complaints horde’ and send it to the Prime Minister. His mother wasn’t sure what a complaints horde was, but Alex explained that he was using the word to mean a group of complaints. Sister Evie, aged eight, also got involved and added points three and four. Rishi Sunak may well be too busy to reply but the letter is worth reading as it raises some interesting issues.

Should Alex’s first point: “We hate the jungle being turned into farmland” be a concern?

The Amazon rainforest is a critical part of the world’s ecosystem because it regulates the Earth’s climate and weather patterns. For decades loggers in Brazil have been putting the global ecosystem at risk by cutting down vast areas of Amazonian jungle. The trees are valuable, and this deforestation is a major driver of Brazil’s economy, both legal and illegal.

The GM soy industry is responsible for much of the destruction. It involves very heavy use of herbicides and other chemicals, which destroy other plants and insects, pollute water supplies and damage health of agricultural workers. So Alex is correct; turning the rainforest into industrialised farmland is not good for the planet or the residents of the region. Fortunately there are also many reforestation projects planting millions of trees each year.

Alex’s second point “Do it [protect the rainforest] for the animals.”

This is also correct because the Amazon rainforest is home to an estimated 400 billion trees that represent over 16,000 species. It is also home to many endangered species of plants and animals.

Evie’s and Alex’s combined point three: “We do not like the poor/rich divide in the community.”

This is a difficult one, because to address it would require that the rich/poor divide in Hastings be quantified. However, we do know that there is a divide within communities in the UK. The gap between the rich and the poor (income inequality) has been increasing in the UK in recent decades. The top 1% of households in the UK earned about 10 times as much as the bottom 50 (Office for National Statistics, 2019). Point four: “We don’t like that the rich people can buy anything, nobody should be really rich or really poor.”

This was Evie’s idea, and it is very relevant to Hastings and St Leonards. A 2020 report showed “Levels of poverty in Hastings are higher than England and Southeast averages and significantly higher than across East Sussex”. Well over a quarter of all children living in Hastings were in low-income households. In Baird, Tressell, Central St Leonards and Hollington wards, over 40% of children were found to be living in poverty.

Child poverty exists when children live in households that are unable to provide them with the opportunities and material necessities for a full and healthy development. The UK government’s most recent data set shows that around four million children in the UK were living in poverty in 2020. That is about 30% of all children in the country.

Research has shown that people living in more disadvantaged areas tend to have worse outcomes in terms of health, education, and employment compared to those living in more affluent areas. The gap between rich and poor communities in the UK is a significant concern. And let’s not forget that the world’s 100 richest people earn so much annually that they could end global poverty four times over. The fact that people go hungry when there is such a surplus of money is cruel and immoral. With great clarity the child’s mind can see through to the truth of it.

Point five: “We are worried about black fungus – mucormycosis.”

Alex aged six knew of mucormycosis, which I had never heard of. So I asked HIP Health and Environment editor Susan McFie to comment. She points out: “Alex maybe heard recent reports of a child dying due to prolonged exposure to black mould in his family’s Housing Association flat. The boy died from a respiratory condition and a severe allergic-type reaction probably due to the fungi. The inquest didn’t mention mucormycosis. This condition is very rare because the human immune system is normally able to deal with exposure to moulds. However cases have been increasing in immune-compromised people.

India has by far the highest number of cases of mucormycosis. According to infectious disease expert, Dr Tanu Singhal, speaking at the Indian Science Congress in Nagpur: “In India fungal spore count is high due to decaying rubbish, tropical climate and humidity. The people affected were those with multiple health problems: usually severe Covid-19 combined with diabetes. These people would be taking high dose steroids, which lead to weakened immunity; this then opens the door to various fungal infections. Mucormycosis remains rare: fungi that cause the condition do not normally affect people, and it cannot be transmitted from person to person.”

Point six: “Don’t destroy habitats and communities.”

Alex and his sister Evie might have remembered the ‘assault gardening’ that was carried out on a nearby Local Wildlife Site. Ecological consultants cut down all trees and shrubs prior to carrying out an ecological survey and before a planning application was submitted. The Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) quoted government guidance, which states that when a site such as the Local Wildlife Site is under threat the best course of action is to protect it with a Tree Preservation Order. The Woodland Trust and Sussex Wildlife Trusts both agree on this. The guidance states trees do not have to be very old.

The council’s tree officer responded to the planning application by writing that there are no trees to protect as they have been cut down. The ELF pointed out that they hadn’t been felled, only coppiced, and are alive and well. The tree officer has refused to put into place the preservation order that would protect the site. Hastings Council then notified the developer that the tree officer will not be protecting the site. The borough’s natural resources manager can continue to tell ward councillors that it is not possible to protect a Local Wildlife Site on private land. The council make it so.

And finally point Seven: “Put the naughty people on Santa’s naughty list.”

I think a lot of people will like that idea. The trouble is, in the modern world where capitalism and money rule, it’s going to be an awfully long list!

This week – 26 November to 4 December – is National Tree Week. The aim is to celebrate trees as the heroes of nature at a perfect moment for planting them.

Trees are vital to our future in so many ways. Friends of the Earth are campaigning to double the tree cover in the UK where we currently have just 13% of the total land covered by trees, compared to an EU average of 35%. Planting more trees is a brilliant positive solution to protect our environment and work towards net zero emissions, as they are the ultimate carbon capture and storage machines. The benefits of reforestation are compelling: tree planting tackles both the climate crisis and the ecosystem collapse whilst providing beautiful and productive spaces to enjoy.

Planting at Speckled Wood orchard in Ore

CREDIT: Mima Bone

In Hastings we are fortunate to have truly spectacular wooded places to enjoy on our doorstep. Guestling Wood, managed by Woodland Trust, is a stunning example of a typical High Weald ancient woodland, and St Helen’s Wood is a magical ancient gill woodland (growing either side of a ravine eroded by a stream running through), looked after by St Helen’s Park Preservation Society. A recent new project is Church Wood Community Orchard in Hollington which planted its first fruit trees in February 2021. Working with a great group of volunteers, the orchard is thriving and hosting community events. They are currently working on planting a hedge around the fence. You can find out more or get involved via their Facebook page.

Ore Community Land Trust manages Speckled Wood, a twelve-and-a-half acre woodland in the heart of Ore. The paths and bridges provide plenty of scope for exploration and discovery, and volunteers here have also been busy planting a new orchard. Alongside the community garden, you will find a range of fruit trees including some more unusual varieties like medlar and mulberry. Open volunteer sessions are held on Thursday mornings, and you can pick up a map of the wood at this time too.

This autumn has seen a renewed emphasis on tree planting locally. Town Grown, the Hastings and St Leonard’s food growers network, launched the Our Town is an Orchard campaign. As well as hosting free events and resources to support would-be tree planters, they are creating a map of new fruit trees planted across the town. Visit the website to register yours.

New tree planting initiatives are also springing up. An orchard with apples, pears, quinces, plums and cherries is being planted this autumn by volunteers in the open space at Bembrook Road. You can follow their progress and get involved through Hastings Community Trees on Facebook. In another project, Croft Road will also be planted with new hawthorn, hazel and field maple trees to regenerate a small piece of woodland which has been diminished by the felling of poplars and ash die-back infection.

Hastings business Brewing Brothers are also doing their bit to add to the tree cover locally. Reforestation is their climate-positive pale ale: it uses local ingredients and a proportion of profits from its sale goes towards planting trees. This autumn, 350 trees will be planted from the sale of Reforestation pale ale. Native species have been chosen to create just over half an acre of new woodland. Goat willow, rowan, blackthorn, dog rose and many more species will encourage pollinators and build biodiversity in this new site on Batchelors Bump in Ore.

Taking advice from the proverb “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago the second best time is now”, let’s all join with our local community and get involved in a tree-planting project. It’s a guaranteed feel-good activity and one that future generations will thank us for.

• For projects mentioned above, see the following websites: www.treecouncil.org.uk; www.woodlandtrust.org.uk; www.sthelenswoods.co.uk; www.towngrown.co.uk/our-town-is-an-orchard; orecommunitylandtrust.org.uk; www.brewingbrothers.org.

Find Church Wood Community Orchard and Hastings Community Trees on Facebook

Kenton Lowe, the director of blackShed Gallery is always keen to swerve from the script. He always does things a little differently. Site number: 102222 is an unusual exhibition for many reasons, not least because it grew out of a participatory workshop that began in February.

After getting approval from the Parish Council and the Woodland Trust, the way was clear for a unique project in Springfield Woods. Enter artists Martin Brockman and Jim Roseveare who led a diverse group into these woods that surround the gallery, to teach and demonstrate traditional woodland skills. These included simple tool making, tree identification and forestry care. Along the way the group selected natural materials to make organic pigments and dug woodland clay which together were processed using crude firing techniques.

Subsequently Jim Roseveare became the gallery’s artist in residence and began to use the exhibition space as well as the woodland site to develop the exhibition which blackShed now hosts. Site number: 102222 has been in development for the best part of 2022. Neither artist nor curator had any preconceived idea of the end result, but both savoured a close working relationship, and every time I spoke with them it was clear that this unpredictability and riskiness drove them on. 

Springfield Woods
CREDIT: Alexander Brattell

Jim is a member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. He has exhibited extensively in London, nationally, and internationally over the last twenty years. His experience of working as an arboriculturalist for thirty or so years means that he has a profound understanding of the ways humans and their culture relate to nature. His work is essentially a meditation on impermanence over imperceivably long-time spans. Human technologies, extraction processes and materials manufacture have developed to provide us with the notion that we are in control of the natural world … but ultimately our dabblings inevitably decay, and return to the earth. He tells me, “I continue my tree surgery partly for financial reasons but also for what it brings to my artwork. That is a strange mix of destruction and renewal, from the adrenalin rush of felling a large tree to the reward of considered pruning.” 

He sees tree surgery itself as an, albeit more utilitarian, form of sculpture that runs in tandem with the constantly changing cycles of growth, dormancy, decline and decay.

Roseveare’s art incorporates concrete, organic materials and debris swept from surrounding ground surfaces. The very fact that this exhibition will not only be hosted in the gallery itself, but also in surrounding woodland embodies the very core themes and concepts that have preoccupied the artist throughout his life.

It was a joy to spend a few hours talking with Jim. Hearing him speak is to experience deep humility and pure authenticity. If there was ever an artist who genuinely uses his work to make sense of the world, then here he was. “The older I get the more I think of the idea that the natural world has its own self will. My work is at a junction between us and this thing we call nature”. 

The exhibition is a physical manifestation of his ideas. Inside the gallery there are two huge monolithic sculptures made from woodland clay. Precariously balanced, they are gradually changing. Grass is sprouting from them and as they dry their surfaces mature and crack. In the adjacent woodland site, there is a powerful sculpture made from hand hewn bricks which will, over the seasons, give birth to new life as they merge back with the earth.

• Site number: 102222 runs until 19 November. theblackshedgallery.org.uk