Forty years ago Dutch elm disease swept through Britain killing millions of trees. Now a conservation charity, which helped bring elm trees back to the streets of Fitzrovia has won an award for its short film about London elms. Source: Fitzrovia
The Conservation Foundation has won the 2013 Creative Award for its short film The A to Z of London Elms in the annual RE:LEAF Awards, organised by the GLA and the Forestry Commission.
BBC World Editor John Simpson presented the Foundation’s director David Shreeve with the award.
Usually The Conservation Foundation is the one giving out the awards for positive environmental awareness.
“The Foundation has lost track of the number of awards we have presented over the years but in this, our 30th anniversary year, it is great to receive one for ourselves,” said Shreeve.
The A to Z of London Elms shows many uses to which elms have been put.
Many elms still thrive in London having been resistant to disease and are a vital part of the city’s biodiversity and essential to the survival of the White-letter Hairstreak butterfly.
Elm is woven into London’s history and among the film’s highlights are the, old London Bridge, elms in art, streets with “elm” in their name, a house made of elm and the city’s medieval waterpipes. Elm also played a part in one of London’s notorious institutions: the Tyburn hanging tree, which stood where Marble Arch is today.
As part of the Ulmus londininum project, The Conservation Foundation’s elm planting program is providing young trees to London places with ‘elm’ in their names, as well as to parks and public spaces and some high profile plantings are also planned.
The Conservation Foundation has been involved with elms for over 30 years, at first encouraging the replanting of lost trees with hybrid, resistant varieties and later propagating new ones from native elms which appear to have resisted Dutch elm disease, as part of the Great British Elm Experiment.
These young trees are available to those who want to take part in the experiment to see if they have inherited a resistance from their ‘parent’ trees.
