A BOOKLET of poetry dedicated to the tree is to be produced by Tavistock Tree Preservation Group to celebrate the Tree Council?s National Tree Week.
Contributions or original poems and/or black and white illustrations for the project are welcome from adults and children of all ages and abilities. Poems can be of any type or style and do not have to rhyme.
Poems and illustrations should be sent to Mary Toon, Gull?s Cry, Courtenay Road, Tavistock, PL19 0EE before the end of October, including name and address or e-mail.
Suggestions for the title of the book would also be welcome. Poems and illustrations will not be returned. There are no prizes, but everyone whose work is included will receive a free booklet.
l The Tree Preservation Group held its first annual meeting recently, most of it devoted to an examination of the Manor House development.
Those present were relieved to hear virtually all the trees on the site were covered by Tree Preservation Orders dating from 1987, including 32 individual trees, four separate areas of woodland, and several other areas and groups of trees.
There are also mitigation schemes proposed for barn owls, bats and badgers on the site, with the developer having accepted all the recommendations.
Members voted to oppose an application to fell a tree at a site in Watts Road and to request a preservation order on it.
The group has been participating in the National Tree Warden Scheme, which became operational in Tavistock and West Devon in May. Wardens have attended talks and training events in Milton Abbot and Okehampton and have led a work party to protect young trees from strimmer damage in Brook Lane.
It was decided to defer until Easter 2005 an invitation to hold a similar work party to help protect young trees in St Eustachius churchyard ? a project in which it is hoped young people can be involved.