My friend Neville Fay, who has died aged 78, set up the reforestation charity Tree Aid in 1987 and then went on to reshape understanding of ancient trees and the soil. During the Dutch elm disease epidemic in the 1970s, Neville bought an old Transit van and chainsaw, felled dead trees and sold firewood door to door. This eventually evolved into Treework Services, expanding into milling timber, tree surgery, landscaping, hardwood flooring and kitchen manufacturing; by 1982 it had become a co-operative of more than 30 people. The images of famine in Ethiopia that prompted Live Aid in 1985 proved a turning point. Believing emergency food aid could never be a credible long-term response, Neville gathered friends in his local pub the Somerset village of Chew Stoke, founded the charity Tree Aid in 1986 and started fundraising. Rather than using money raised to develop new projects in Africa, funds were directed to existing community-led initiatives in the semi-arid Sahel region, south of the Sahara, helping to accelerate ecosystem restoration. With the charity successfully running, in 1992 Neville stepped away from the organisation, with Tree Aid continuing to thrive. To date it has planted almost 50m trees across Africa. Neville was...

Opera: De afgelopen tijd verschenen er meerdere boeken en waren er verschillende voorstellingen met bomen als thema, zoals nu in de opera Treework. De boom is niet langer alleen decor. „Wist je trouwe...

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YouTube video by Perry Trees

YouTube video by Tree Matters / Andrew Matters