88: Every Tree Tells a Story

Matt has very exciting news to share before he and Becky welcome James Bonner from Every Tree Tells a Story to discuss his work.

https://everytree.uk/

Episode Transcription

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You're listening to a Bespoken Media production.

Matt: Hello and welcome to Local Zero with myself, Matt and Becky.

Becky: Yes, and today we're joined by James Bonner, who'll be talking to us about the Every Tree Tells a Story project.

Matt: Yes, a really exciting project that aims to understand how each of us are connected to the trees around us. So if you have your own personal story about trees, then please do get involved in the conversation, whether that's via X.

Known as twitter at localzeropod, or you can email us in more detail at our email address, localzeropod@gmail.com.

Becky: As you'll have heard at the very beginning, local zero is looking for new funding to keep us going. So if the pod has helped you with your work or your studies, please do get in touch to let us know.

This helps us a lot more than you might think.

Matt: So Becky, my first episode back. Still dusting off the tinsel and mince pies and all the rest. Um, but how are you? How are things?

Becky: Yeah, we're all good down here. Thanks, Matt. And, uh, we certainly missed you on our last episode and absolutely fantastic recording all about arts and local climate action. Uh, you would have absolutely loved it.

Matt: No, I'm really sorry to have missed out on that. And I have to say, I keep coming back to this point about storytelling and the importance of a good story in trying to win hearts and minds about tackling some of the, you know, the big issues, but also doing something that's exciting and positive and meaningful and that connects to the individual.

So, um, I really enjoyed listening to that and, um, sounds like you enjoyed recording it too.

Becky: Yeah, I, I absolutely did. And I have a very dear colleague of mine who says, you know, stories are data with a soul. And so I really do think about that, you know, like you can take, you can take your bar graphs and they're very important.

And we all know that the, the information that underlies them is absolutely critical in our field and informing climate and nature action and so on. But actually. It doesn't connect with most people. So, uh, those stories are absolutely critical if we want to get widespread change.

Matt: Yeah. And maybe let me get my tuppence worth in here cause I wasn't on the episode, but I'm always quite surprised by how poorly funded the arts and culture, um, spaces versus big tech, uh, business enterprise.

And certainly that's the case when we think about sustainability and net zero that we don't necessarily have a big budget for low carbon storytelling yet. I don't know if you're like me, Becky, but the number of hours I spend probably, you know, watching Netflix and Amazon prime and all this stuff, uh, reading books, listening to the radio, whether it be, um, uh, you know, documentaries or, or plays.

And each of us do this, you know, each of us spend a tremendous amount of time. So why are we not using this as one of our key weapons in the arsenal, uh, you know, to tackle climate change and other, other crises?

Becky: Yeah. And I think Matt, even with really, really practical actions as well, and I, and I reflect back on a project I was involved in when I lived in New Zealand and it was all about retrofit, um, and retrofit in some of Dunedin's worst and most challenging homes.

We tried to really engage people with personalized information and advice about what they could do. But actually the thing that really spoke to, to people involved in this study was hearing the stories from their friends or neighbors and peers who'd actually done something. And not just hearing the stories about how they did it, but hearing the stories about the impact that it's made on their lives, which so often extends beyond.

You know, the immediate energy or, or climate impacts that we think about.

Matt: I agree. And so I'm going through a process with my, my two, uh, little whippersnappers. So they're seven years old, just getting used to reading now. So, you know, they can actually read stuff off the book. So we're going through a lot of fairy tales.

Some of the real old school ones, like Brothers Grimm and all the classics. Uh, I have to say the moral of the story, um, or the morals of these stories, often very odd. Yeah. Uh, still skin would be one of the strangest, really weird, like, but at the end of each one I'll pause and I'll say, so what's the moral of the story?

And they, they're actually pretty on the money and if there isn't one, they normally sniff that out quite quickly. But if we go back to the sort of ecological sustainability angle, stories like the Lorax, not a fairy tale, but Dr. Seuss and really fantastic story about sustainability that really resonates and it resonates with, you know, somebody who's three years old as much as it does with somebody who's 93.

I really feel very strongly about the arts, culture, humanities, this space being at the forefront of this, and I really hope 24 is the year that it really takes off.

Becky: Yeah. And I will, I will say Matt, your kids are similar age to mine and mine are absolutely fascinated. We're really into Enid Blyton. And we've been listening to stories about Cherry Tree Farm, which is all about how these kids were so sick living in London and they kept getting ill.

So they were sent away to the country to live with their aunt and uncle on the farm. And it's all about their stories around the farm and the woodland. And of course we can't forget the magical fire away tree as well, which I think is particularly apt considering today's conversation.

Matt: Yeah. I mean, these are, I guess positive stories ultimately, or at least they, they may be end on a positive note.

We're starting to see this come out in the mainstream. Uh, so in the cinema, we, or at least a lot of streaming services, but I noticed as a new film out called the end, we start from with Jodie Comer. I guess it follows on from don't look up with DiCaprio and others. Um, Doesn't sound a very positive tale.

I haven't watched the film yet and it might end up on a positive note, but the, the, uh, the kind of the, um, subtext is coma plays a young woman whose baby arrives just as an environmental crisis begins to break the society around her. Pretty dystopian. Hopefully she lives a very happy, uh, fulfilling life.

And so does a child, but, um, yeah, Is that the way to win hearts and minds? I don't know. I'll reserve judgment till I watch it, but

Becky: I did bring this up actually in our, in our chat on the last episode around the notion of hope versus despair and that often, you know, stories can focus on some of the, the real challenges out there and can leave you feeling a little bit, you know, hopeless, I guess.

And, uh, and one of the things we talked about was that actually action inspires hope and so getting involved and, and I think that our places and our communities provide such an important. Way to do that. So, you know, bringing those stories and connecting them to place and connecting them to communities is absolutely critical, but I'm just going to jump from that, this point about communities.

Cause I think you've got some very exciting news about communities.

Matt: I do. Yes. So it's been, um, a little bit. It's been a while in the making, but, um, we are due very shortly to launch a new Institute for Sustainable Communities at the University of Strathclyde Engineering Department, and it will be an initiative, long term friend of the pod, Dr. Jan Roberts, who you've worked very closely with in the past, um, but we've got a, a growing gaggle of um, community, um, place based sustainability experts here, and we're trying to bring them all together. And I do think that again, 2024 is going to be the year that, um, particularly in the UK communities rise to the fore of the news agenda.

We're seeing. Already happening in Scotland with the transmission lines criss crossing, potentially criss crossing across Scottish highlands and islands to get electricity down south. What does that mean for local communities? That's a very isolated example, but we're looking about how we can empower and enrich communities through our research.

So yeah, busy time for me and colleagues.

Becky: This is so exciting. I'm absolutely thrilled for you, but I'm more thrilled for the wider research environment because I think so often we focus on those, you know, the supply side of energy or, you know, technological solutions to the climate crisis. And actually That's, that's very important.

I'm not dismissing it, but we don't focus enough on people and communities and what the amazing groundswell of action that's happening there. So I am absolutely thrilled that you are bringing that to the fore and that Strathclyde has, has supported that and, um, and it's really driving it forward. It's absolutely brilliant news.

Matt: Yeah, no thrilled, busy time. So we'll come back with, with more information on that. I'm hoping to have a launch in April, uh, and maybe local zero can be there. And also hoping that the Institute can support local zero to push on and crack on into the rest of this year. So, uh, we'll bring news when it comes through.

However, what has been occupying the mainstream news of late as we speak. And, um, that we've just survived another one are storms. So often at this time of the year, local zero hosts, um, reflect back on how do we get on? I think previous episode before Christmas, I think we had, uh, Paul Fraser was nearly washed out of his house.

Um, so we've had two more. We've had Aisha and Jocelyn, um, really bad up here. Uh, particularly Aisha. We, I woke up to a number of trees down. Given the episode is all about trees, it was a moment of loss or renewal, renewal as some might frame it. How was it down Cornwall way?

Becky: Oh, we were battered. We were absolutely battered.

But, uh, where I'm on the coast, we don't have quite as many trees. So you see it in different ways and the seas have been raging and it is quite.

Matt: No surfing then?

Becky: Well, I mean, some people were still out in the sea like a couple of days ago when the winds were pretty high, um, but yeah, absolute nutters. No, I, I've not been going anywhere near it.

It's been, it's been absolutely, absolutely insane, but there's something very awe inspiring around it. You know, I mean, sometimes it gets to the point of being a little bit terrifying and I'm not going to lie. I did sort of lie awake in my home, um, hearing the wind battering the house down at one point, really, really quite unnerving.

But you know, when it's, when it's not quite at that level, that's kind of, you know, severe threat, there is something very, magical about witnessing how wild nature really is, and it really puts you in your place, you know, I feel very humbled by it all.

Matt: I think that's right. And, and I do think it's a window into the reality on climate change for the, every person, uh, the frequency of these storms and the severity of these storms.

Um, and if you know, your, your home or your neighborhood or friends or family have been affected by these, um, The question is how, how, how bad will things get going forward? So I, as much as I lament the pain that people have been through, and obviously people have been hurt and worse during these storms, they are an important reminder about where we're at.

As I said, I had a number of trees down. I was, We were lucky that we didn't lose any in the, in the garden. We've got a couple of big ones. And one day, if one of them falls, um, I might be homeless kind of thing. We'll talk more with James in a moment, but you've got young children. So do I, I guess for me, one of the key reasons I wanted to do this episode is once my two got old enough to climb and play in trees and my love for trees kind of reached a new level and started to look at them in a different way, but what do they mean to you and why?

Why are you excited about doing this episode?

Becky: Yeah, I mean, uh, similarly, you know, my kids, uh, my kids have grown up around playing in the trees and around the trees. And so I think they've always had that kind of element of curiosity and exploration. For me, I think they, they really ground me, you know, and I don't, I don't think I think this about a specific tree and I know some of my friends and colleagues will have trees that they think about.

You know, the ones that they, the very specific ones that they climbed as a kid and were deeply connected to for, for whatever reason, I think for me, it's more, um, the, the serenity and peace that, that being in a woodland area. Brings to me and the ever changing quality of that over the year, you know, and how different that is in the summer shade it brings or in the, the leaves that come down through the winter and the, you know, the beautiful colors and then the rebuzzing in spring and that kind of new life coming into being.

And I just feel so kind of peaceful and calm in those, in those areas.

Matt: Yeah, I completely agree that kind of forest bathing or similar to that. I think there's a lot of truth in that. I've been reflecting on this question for a while, and I think the value I find is that they transcend. They should, if we look after them, transcend the human Life cycle and there's, there was a tree that really, I thought, put this into perspective.

There's, um, a little, uh, two sort of, I hesitate to say towns, but they're kind of large villages in Persia, Dunkeld and Burnham, uh, separated by a large river. I think it's the river Tay, but if I'm wrong, somebody kick me. And they're one up. opposing sides of the Tay and in Burnham, there is the Burnham Wood.

Now for folk who've read Macbeth and know Shakespeare, they'll know, um, importance of, of the Burnham Wood in Macbeth. And if you go to the, that wood today, you will find the Burnham Oak, which is in my trusty manual of Scotland's heritage trees, which, uh, as a tree geek is, you know, is, is, is akin to the Bible.

Uh, and in there you'll find the Burnham Oak. Now the Burnham Oak, they think stood. When Shakespeare, they think would have visited back in the 1500s and was inspired by the wood to write this particular section about the witches and what have you. And it's still there and I've got a picture of my kids inside it.

Now, why is that important? Because I think it puts me and it should put all of us in our place on two fronts. One is how fleeting our time is and how nature transcends that. And the second is. to, to disrupt that in a moment, you know, whether it be to, you know, accidentally sort of trigger a forest fire or to slash these trees down or for whatever purposes, you are disturbing centuries, potentially millennia of, of, of growth.

And so it's this notion of longevity versus this instantaneous disruption of that ancient order of things. And I think that's where humans fit in. We can really cock things up very quickly and then it takes a long time to put them back together again and, and that's where I think we should be reminded.

Becky: What a really amazing reflection and story and I think that's kind of the, the inspiration for, for today's chat with James. So we should probably bring him in.

Matt: Bring him in.

James: My name's James Bonner. I'm a Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde and I work on a project called Every Tree Tells a Story.

Matt: Welcome James. It's a pleasure to have you on the pod. James and I bumped into each other recently in the Cairngorms national park. We actually been working in the same department for a while and hadn't quite connected about this really exciting project. We're going to hear more about, I think it took. A few days in the midst of a whole bunch of trees in the most beautiful setting, icy cold Cairngorms with people ice swimming and what have you in the loch, to really get a sense of the importance of your project and what it might mean for all of us.

So why don't we begin at the beginning. What is your project about Every Tree Tells a Story and how did you end up getting so involved with the trees?

James: Yeah, thanks Matt. The story of Every Tree is We Shorten It To started in spring 2021 I joined in summer 2022, but it's really a group of friends, as people kind of refer to it, um, some academics from institutions in Glasgow and elsewhere.

Um, some local authority professionals, um, and also some other creative practitioners who have got together, um, for the love of trees, um, to share knowledge about them, to, you know, hopefully affect some policy decisions, um, but generally share that passion and care for trees. From my own point of view, yeah, trees are not my research background or area, but I've always cared for trees, always seen trees.

I have a favourite tree in a park nearby me, which I cycle past every day, um, and take photographs of it from the same spot. And I have this in compilation for five years and it's come up as a friend to me, particularly over the last five, six years when we've had those detachments from one another. So that's my, my tree association.

Matt: Very good. And before we get sort of more into the project and why it was established, I was taken at this Cairngorms residential, we had a collective of different researchers with different backgrounds, and we all had to sort of stand up and talk a bit about our disciplinary backgrounds and what we did and why it was relevant to sustainability.

And I think you were the only person in the room who stood up and said that you were an accountant by training. And I was quite taken aback on the one hand and really pleasantly surprised that we had somebody who was an accountant who was working on such a kind of exciting, different, um, very kind of interesting.

Ecologically minded project, which is about people and trees. So, so maybe if you just take a moment to connect accountancy to trees, if you might.

James: So how long have we got? Um, yeah, well, I'll try and make that long connection. Well, my background, my undergraduate is. I was also at Strat Light. In fact, I'm triple graduate of Strat Light now.

So my undergraduate, undergraduate was actually in a degree called Ology and Business Studies, which no longer exists at University 20 something years ago. And that was in accounting and manufacturing engineering. So I combined degree and uh, I followed that through. And, you know, I, I've all had a lot of doubts about my, my background in accounting or to study accounting.

You know, we make these choices at an early age. You're good at. Um, or, you know, using numbers. But my interest has always been more widely in case my manufacturing experience took me into design, which is a passion of mine. Um, I really got to the end of my kind of accounting degree that some colleagues at the university who worked around sustainability, accounting, social, ecological, accounting, and I really realized there was a lot of space for me there, around thinking about sensibility.

How do we think about value? How do we think about nature? How do we think of life? Those things and not quantifying or financializing is only one way of thinking about value. Um, so later I took me on to a master's in ecological studies, environmental studies, which was becoming closer.

And then after a time away of working, I eventually did my doctorate at Strathclyde, sat in accounting again, um, through contact there, um, on water and working with hydrology and engineering, um, really moving towards. Anthropology, the arts, critical geography. So they say I'm an accountant, but I've always floated water as my doctorate research, and it's felt very close to me because I feel quite watery.

I tend to move and shift and go where, go where people take me.

Matt: Very good. I like this idea about counting for nature and accounting for value. I'm

Becky: listening to this. I'm thinking, you know, I'm, I'm really fascinated by the project. And, um, I recently, so I used to live up in Glasgow. I've recently moved down to Cornwall and I live by the coast.

And one of the things that I've really, recognized from that move and where I live is, is actually the difference in, in what I see in terms of the trees. Like we just don't have the same sort of, um, tree species, tree lights up down here near the coast. It's a very different environment. And it's something that I was reflecting on actually over the Christmas period is really missing, um, from, from living in Glasgow and living so close to, to some of the amazing you know, parks in close to the city. And as you were saying, sort of up in the Cairngorms and the more kind of remote environments. And a lot of this was prompted by my six year old telling me what he wanted for Christmas. And he wanted a book about trees to tell him how to take care and look after trees.

And this request came completely unprompted. I, I, it just sort of appeared almost to come out of nowhere. And so I've been thinking about this a lot and I just wonder, you know, from From everything that you've been involved in and from all the activities you've been doing with the Every Tree Project, do you, you know, what, what do you think it is about trees that makes us so kind of viscerally connected to them, um, even from that very young age?

Is there something special about them?

James: Yeah, I wonder this, and I think this is an interesting thing, and maybe we'll come to around how we go around doing. Collecting stories on trees, but everyone has a story about a tree, you know, and an association to a tree. I mean, we see them very present. We've just come out of Christmas, and the Christmas tree is, you know, this motif, symbol of this yearly festival.

We see trees in places we are. We, we climb them. We, we associate with them. So they are, they are, they are out there in the world. They are part of our communities, and yeah, trees are special, but I think. There's something about presence, and there's something about their age, which is interesting, I think, is that they often tend to be older than us, but they're not so old, we can kind of attach to them, um, and we can see them grow, we can see them go through seasonal cycles, so I think we recognize them as part of our communities, and I think this is um, powerful reason why we're attached to them, but they're in stories, you know, they're stories we hear from a young age and fables and tales and, um, a lot of the language we use, um, something about them.

Matt: So James, I wonder, you mentioned there about the kind of capturing these stories. So when I was at this Cairngorms retreat with you.

You were using postcards. So I just wonder if you could talk a bit about what the project did to capture these types of values and stories that Becky and yourself are referring to. Cause that that's really difficult to do to kind of distill that into a unit of data as, as we sort of boffins might refer to it.

James: Yeah, I, I think some go this, and this has been one of the main methodologies, these postcards, which I have, which have been beautifully designed by a local artist and this idea of using postcards with this free space on them. So they're, you know, they're quite large. They're not, they're not really small postcard, but enough space for people to write.

or to draw, to engage with. There's some prompts, so our kind of prompt is, you know, every tree tells a story, what is yours? And that's really all we've given people and allows people to open up about the story of a tree. And really, it has been quite an evolving methodology, not one that I had done before, but in my own doctorate research, I use things like walking methodologies and mapping, deep mapping, which involves, you know, drawing where you're gone and annotating and adding stories to it.

So that kind of concept of collating has always been really important to me, but the postcards themselves. A lot of this over the last year or so was, was really me going out into the city, um, and, uh, just encountering people in places with a bunch of postcards on a bike. Um, I actually had got a little post box built from a local woodworker, which was some planks of wood that were from a floorboard and were remade into a post box so people could literally post into the box that I was carrying around.

Again, that was coming from a tree, you know, and it was this cycle where we're using pencil, you know, the pencil used a tree, uh, as well with its wood. So kind of connecting all of those things. But yeah, we're going out into the city, people just saying, you know, can, can we, can you tell us a story please about a tree?

And that's been, you know, that's been the experience.

Becky: Did you find quite a strong engagement? Were there any particular groups of people that were maybe more engaged than others and, and what sort of things were they, were they telling you?

James: Yeah, I think, you know, multi generations we engage with and obviously I think it depends where you go, you know, I did some really around the University of Strathclyde, University of Strathclyde on our campus as well, and that gave us stories from, you know, from students, from young people, international students as well, who brought really interesting, we brought stories of trees from elsewhere, so we have this, this compilation of trees that people add from their memory, from their past, from their childhood, that they brought for a moment to be in the city in Glasgow.

So it was almost like trees visited for a moment as people told them. Older people would talk of memories particularly. I also did. one or two more kind of formal workshops with primary school children around, you know, I think they were about nine or ten, and they told us stories of trees. Interestingly, what we did with them was, you know, ask, tell us a story of a tree, and you can see sometimes a bit of, oh, I'm not sure what to do, and then I'm like, you can draw.

And as soon as that permission to draw was given, this amazing, uh, output, and I think this was a real reminder of, you know, how we articulate stories, and that we, we could, um, the automatic line of, you know, something articulating through words. But there's other ways of representing, and this is important, I think, when we go back to articulating value, or articulating story or narrative, or what's important.

There's other ways of talking, there's other ways of seeing, and there's other ways of giving representation. And hence the drawings are beautiful from kids.

Matt: James, I wanted to kind of push a bit more at that about our connection with a tree versus trees. The first was whether, as humans, we, we may be, we're better positioned to have a connection with a tree singular than trees.

It's a forest or a wood. And I rather glibly said this to you, I think when we were, we were walking and because I'm a sucker for a pun, whether you actually have an issue where humans may not be able to see the wood for the tree, i. e. they have a focus on an individual tree and a connection to that, but then they kind of miss the bigger picture.

And it's this, this issue where they might have a connection with a individual beautiful tree, but then not necessarily make the connection with that and the deforestation of virgin woodland. I think associated with that is also the different values that we, uh, ascribe to trees and, and at the retreat, um, uh, colleague of ours, uh, Arno from, uh, from the university of Edinburgh, who is from Canada said, you know, trees really are lumber, you know, in Canada that we, we see these as a kind of the lifeblood of the local economy.

So there's a couple of things here about our connection with. An individual tree or the plural, but also that, that I think when I think you ask most people in the UK, the connection with a tree, the thinking sort of recreational personal family rather than a job to wicked questions possibly, but any, is this something that's come up in your research?

James: Yeah, no, I think this is an interesting thought, and it's a recognition that trees, and maybe when I was inferring about, you know, the post edit, using pencils or the postbox we had, you know, there's an inference that trees are cyclical, they move through, you know, our economies, our society, how we interact with them.

And I think that's an interesting point from a philosophical idea, is that it's recognising how trees, they move, they change, they live, they die. We use them but we're embedded with them in that sense. So I think depending on your perspective, whom you talk to, you would get a different discussion around trees, you know, whether there were If you talk to a wood, a woodworker or a carpenter, you would, you would get a different discussion or, you know, you talk to someone who worked in forestry or these different ones, I guess, from the group that we talked to, you know, there are members of the public and generally members of the public would see trees.

Matt: And by extension, value is subjective. So I think that's a really good example of how, when we talk about. You know, whether somebody values something that's environmental, ecological, we must understand their standpoint first.

James: And I guess that to come back to the sort of accounting idea that often use the idea of an accounting idea to give an account, and that's getting back to the underlying principles of what accounting is.

The idea to give an account is used more in the arts, it's used in, you know, anthropology, it's used in political geography, to give an account, to give a story, to give a representation. So these are accounts of people's association or valuing, which is, yeah, incredibly subjective but Well for me, valuation is a subjective idea based on, you know, how we interpret the world and that's from an accounting point of view is an interesting accounting or economic point of view is to go back to how we think of how we value so much into society and that's dependent on world views and potentially dominant worldviews which, you know, assert how value is represented.

And does that take into account values which have been sort of pushed to the

side?

Matt: To bridge that point into the value of an individual tree versus trees, and I go back to the incident in autumn 23, I think it was, Or yeah, late summer, autumn where we lost the sycamore tree, which was cut down. If the listeners don't know what I'm referring to, probably heard of Hadrian's wall, which was the Roman wall, which divided ancient or Roman Scotland from, um, sorry, Roman England, I should say from, from, from Scotland and was cut down in the middle of the night.

And which caused a, you know, whole sort of ferrari around, um, why was this cut and a kind of national morning that sort of spoke about a value associated with a tree that you don't necessarily see the same upset about. Well, you do in some quarters, but the trees lost through, for instance, HS2. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong, but hundreds, thousands of trees lost versus the singular one.

I would argue that more column inches were given to the former rather than the latter.

James: This is how stories are told, you know, and how things are represented and they are dependent on how those are presented and the value that's attributed. But, you know, we have this idea around. Please, and I think it's important point is that you can actually point earlier, Matt, about, you know, seeing a singular tree or collective trees and these gates is something that come up and forestry and different cultures are people that we spoke to would talk about those depending on where you, you kind of came from. That we found, um, some answers from people from the Nordics or from, from Germany, for example, who talked about forestry and talked about going to the forest and going to the woods. And these seem to be linked to more kind of cultural practices about how you encounter the world and how you do it as a, as a, you know, as a practice.

Um, and I think, you know, these are interesting things to think of is that it's how we, engage with the world that helps us understand of how we can value. Um, and those still seem important.

Becky: So I want to start to connect some dots here because I think what you've been saying and what we've been talking about and the, the stories and these values and, uh, and, um, that we hold associated with a specific tree or a group of trees is absolutely fascinating, but we haven't yet. We've talked about this in the context of the very, very important role that our trees and forests play in climate and nature, and you know, that broader focus, I think, that we try and take on the pod around local climate action, place based sustainability.

So how do we start to understand The, you know, the insights from the stories that you've been collecting, how do we join those dots to that kind of broader context of supporting local climate action?

James: Yeah, it's interesting, the stories, what you tell, it's a recognition from people of the value that trees do offer for things like climate, for, you know, air quality, shade, habitats for, for, for non human life.

ecological value, but I'm really interested in that idea of social and ecological value that also combines with how important they are to society, to humans, and I think there's a key philosophical point there about recognizing that us as humans, as society, are embedded in nature, our local nature, our local places, and that we depend on them, and increasingly they depend on From a kind of knowledge point of view, I think these stories are really important to open up idea of connection and that I think all of our local and global sustainability challenges are a recognition that we are not separate from this world out there.

And when we start to recognize that embeddedness, then we can start to, we can start to think of value in a different way. And I think sometimes that step is neglected or not given space, but these stories actually beautifully articulate and capture that idea. Um, and then that sharing between people, because doing these stories.

For me, we talk about, you know, the outputs of the postcard, but each of these stories involved me, you know, speaking to the person, and them writing the postcard, but a discussion and an interaction happened between us, and I love this idea of going out to, you know, the city centre of Glasgow, or, you know, somewhere else, and actually doing this almost performance of giving out the postcards and sharing stories.

And not only were we doing that to one another, the person I was speaking to, people could see what was going on and they may come and, um, Be involved as part of that and that idea of a kind of performance is really important and forming within our local communities around story making and story sharing feels important as recognizing for recognizing value.

Matt: I completely agree and I think it's also about taking people out of the doom and gloom of sustainability, ecological breakdown what have you and and connecting this as you say to one of the most. Basic traits of of humanity really which is storytelling and i do think this is something i keep coming back to is about how do you excite people how do you connect people how do you inspire people in a way that quietly. and calmly connects them to the issue at hand and begins to encourage them in a different direction or at least encourage them to ask different questions.

James: I think you've raised something really important about, you know, these positive stories that we call them around trees, but I think it's important to recognize, you know, within the stories there's, there's deep melancholy as well, there's, there's loss of tree and particularly what was really kind of helpful was speaking to Some stories coming from children who were recognising debtor tree, they were recognising climate change, they were recognising, there's, you know, thread of eco and eco anxiety coming through what was being written.

So I think value of the postcards as well is that they allow for a complexity of story to emerge from what's been written. It's not positive or it's not necessarily negative. It's, it's a kind of thartic space for people to Express these different emotions. And I think this is an important part of storytelling is that it's not binary and allows for a kind of complex story to emerge.

So I would really push that as an important aspect of of of what's been written. And so, you know, to think about taking these. These stories we have, you know, we have started working on some specific outputs around, you know, policy paper and some academic papers, which will be important for us within the university.

But for me, ours themselves, the value of the story is something that needs to be protected. So, you know, I sought to archive them and hold them. And display them, you know,

Matt: so one of the things I'm grappling with, I'm a policy wonk and I know Becky is, is to, you know, we're often what the work with we do leads back to how can it impact upon policymakers, civil servants, parliamentarians, but actually, I wonder whether what we have here.

Is very much more in the kind of third sector space and it's, it's much more about grassroots community and I'll give you a concrete example and it's something James, you and I have spoken about, but we're involved with, um, through the charity south seeds in the south side of Glasgow is tree trails. Um, these exist across the piece.

I know James were talking about, um, some of the universities in Glasgow, looking at this too. These are powerful ways of connecting people to trees, connecting them to the landscape, connecting them to other people who are connected to the trees and landscape, um, you know, in terms of. Who you're, who you're taking these results to and findings to, who could help you most?

Is this a third sector play or, or, uh, is it across the board?

James: Yeah, thanks for raising the tree trails, because that is an important thing. And we, we did that. One of the things that emerged from this actually is part of our other project as well about health and wellbeing and getting outside and physical activity, which is other work I do at the university.

Thanks. Is that getting outside and finding the trees and within our city, these trails, but those, it's this almost, let's go and look at some trees, actually just brought a connection between people, allowed them to talk about the trees, but allowed to talk to them equally. with one another in this fluid way of walking, and this is my another part of my research about walking methodologies, walking with water, walking with trees, and the way we walked is at a tempo that allows us to think and converse, and this is what we've always done.

Deep aspects of philosophy are come from walking, you know, that's the basis of a lot of this. And I think that combination is one that I really want to take forward. The trails plus the postcarding, this methodology that is getting outside on who do we go to? I think anyone can be involved in this. I think policymakers and work with, you know, academic workshops.

When you're doing a workshop in the in the In a room, and it's, you're all stuck around a table, and it's been going well, but we've done it more like, let's go and do the tree trail. Let's go outside. Let's engage with one another differently. And that fluidity of movement allows for people to converse differently.

So, the trees are a bit of a conduit just for, conversation making and representing. So I think, you know, this could be something that can be done with policymakers. This can be done with school kids. This can be done with citizens. I think it's the methodology, it's the, it's the way of encountering the world and I think different things can be raised.

By doing process and it's the process of doing is for me is really important.

Becky: There was an article in the paper yesterday at the time we're recording this, so mid January, talking about how kids are suffering because they just lack the ability to get outdoors and play outdoors. And I think back to my, I think about my kids upbringing and You know, the school that they, until they were five, so until they went to school, they spent most of every day outdoors in the woods.

They went to, um, to a forest, uh, forest nursery. And it was amazing. And they, and you could see the difference in them when they didn't get to be outdoors. They, they were frustrated and their emotions were, you know, flying off a handle a bit more and, and it just, they were a lot calmer. After they spent that time outdoors and now that they're at a great school, but it's all concrete.

They have outdoor areas, but there's nothing natural there at all. And you see that across towns. And I just, I think that some of the things you're talking about really give rise to, um, really make us need to examine the way that we are educating our kids as well as working together and influencing policymakers.

Matt: I couldn't agree more. I wonder whether we can end on a nice question for each of us, which is, what is your favourite tree? Um, James, I'm going to begin with you, but if you had to pick one, what might it be?

James: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, there is a tree, a very favourite tree that I have, um, Glasgow Green, which is, you know, partly part within the city of Glasgow centres, and I sit at it every day, and it was particularly a friend during Covid, you know, that when we didn't have this ability to connect with, with others.

The tree became a connection for me. You know, I hugged the tree and I'm perfectly happy to say that. And I think this is important. Um, I think actually doing this project has been really interesting. I'm starting to love other people's trees because they've written and told me of them. And I deeply feel some of the stories people have said.

I would love to meet some of these trees that people have spoken to.

Matt: So we were in the garden the other day about Novak Djokovic. Who i sent on to james who has a favorite tree in a park i think near sydney but he's kept it top secret just like you did james so nobody else can visit it whilst he's there enjoying it and hugging it um anyway becky go on

Becky: so i have a favorite Group of trees.

And, um, and I'm probably not the only person that lives down in Cornwall that, that has these, they're my husband's as well. And there's a small group of them and you see them when you drive, make the drive from Devon down into Cornwall, cause they mark the border and they're the welcome home tree. So when you see those trees, you know, you are home and there's about 140 of them, but they're all grouped together quite tightly.

Yeah. In and otherwise, you know, just like on the top of the brow of a hill and then it's flat apart from that. So they're very, uh, they're very special and they're special because they have a meaning that is tied with that broader connection to place.

Matt: I like that. You know, you're home. That's a good one.

I thought about this long and hard and I don't have one, but I think I do. In terms of its totemic and it connects him with a whole lot load of other trees, there's somewhere in, um, in Ayrshire called Dumfries house. I don't know whether either of you have been, but it's in the most amazing location. Part of the Prince's trust.

Um, And an incredible array of trees, redwoods, oaks, ash, you name it, they're there. Um, but in the wall garden there, there is a sycamore, which is about three, 400 years old. And it sits on top of this knoll. And it's like the king of the trees. It, it, it, it rises above literally metaphorically above all the others.

And when I see that I'm in my happy place, um, and I, you know, kids running around it, hanging off it. Lots of good memories. James, thank you so much for coming along. I'm hope all of our listeners can share their stories too. We'd really like to hear those, but we look forward to seeing where this project goes next.

And indeed you spinning this off into other areas, you've mentioned water. So we'll, we'll bring you back on to hear more about that in due course. Thanks for having

James: me. And yeah, if you're interested to hear more about Every Tree Tells a Story, you can find us online at everytree.UK, particularly on Instagram, so Every Tree tells a story.

Matt: You've been listening to Local Zero. The number one way you could help this pod is to share it with somebody you think might like it. So, if there are any other climate change or energy geeks out there that you think might like Local Zero, please do recommend us.

Becky: On our website, localzeropod. com, you can find and listen to to the back catalog of episodes we've recorded over the years, and do please email us at localzeropod@gmail.Com. If there's anything you'd like us to discuss in future episodes, but for now, thank you for listening and goodbye.

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