On Thursday 10 September 2026, Lewes Town Council unanimously adopted a ten-point Charter for the Rights of Trees. The motion, proposed by my Green colleague Councillor Dinah Morgan, gives symbolic recognition to the intrinsic value of trees, hedgerows and other local flora, including their ability to flourish, to exist in healthy environmental conditions, and, where circumstances allow, to complete their natural life cycle.
The Charter does not create new legal rights or override existing planning, highways, safety or property law. Its significance is instead as a statement of principle and a framework against which the Council can consider its own decisions and advocacy.
The reaction has been predictably divided.
Supporters see the Charter as a useful cultural and policy tool. Trees are commonly valued according to what they do for us: storing carbon, reducing flood risk, cooling streets, supporting wildlife or improving property and amenity values. The Rights of Trees approach asks us also to recognise trees as living organisms embedded in complex ecological systems, rather than simply as assets or resources.
There is an international context too. Various forms of “Rights of Nature” thinking have emerged around the world, including legal and constitutional measures in countries such as Bolivia, Panama and New Zealand. Lewes is obviously operating on a much smaller and non-statutory scale, but the underlying question is similar: should environmental decision-making recognise the interests of the natural world more explicitly?
The Charter also envisages people acting as guardians or advocates for trees where decisions affecting them are being considered. Properly handled, that could ensure that the ecological consequences of decisions are represented more consistently.
There are, however, reasonable objections.
Some critics argue that the language of “rights” is philosophically misplaced. Trees have no agency, duties or legal personality in the ordinary sense, and concepts such as a right to clean air or appropriate temperatures cannot simply be enforced against the natural world.
Others worry about practical consequences. Could tree guardianship become another means of obstructing housing, infrastructure or necessary land management? Could a symbolic Charter generate bureaucracy without producing measurable environmental benefits? And if it has no statutory force, is it ultimately more gesture than substance?
Those questions are worth asking. A Charter of this kind will only be valuable if it improves decisions on the ground.
That is why I supported the motion in principle but concentrated my contribution on making it ecologically robust, practically implementable and appropriate to the powers of a Town Council.
I argued for stronger recognition that a tree cannot sensibly be considered in isolation from its roots, soil, fungi, water, surrounding vegetation and wider ecological relationships. I wanted decisions affecting trees to be informed by competent assessment rather than sentiment alone.
I also supported recognition of the natural life cycle of trees, including ageing, decay and death. Dead and veteran trees can be extraordinarily valuable habitats. But that principle must sit alongside proportionate risk management where trees genuinely threaten people, buildings or infrastructure.
I argued for an avoidance-first approach: before compensating for damage or planting replacements, we should first ask whether harm to established trees can reasonably be avoided.
Equally important is succession. Protecting today’s mature trees is not enough. We need to identify where the veteran trees of fifty, one hundred or two hundred years from now will come from, and allow enough young trees to grow into that role.
Finally, I wanted greater clarity about guardianship, planning representations, implementation and reporting. If the Charter was to mean anything, there should be a transparent way of showing how its principles influence decisions.
For me, therefore, supporting the Rights of Trees was not about pretending that a beech tree can instruct a solicitor or that every tree must remain untouched forever.
It was about changing the presumption.
Instead of asking only what we are permitted to do to trees, we should also ask what trees and the ecosystems around them require if they are to persist and flourish.
That is a legitimate question for a town facing climate change, biodiversity loss, development pressure and the gradual disappearance of mature trees from the landscape.
The language of “rights” will inevitably divide opinion. What matters now is whether we can translate that language into better stewardship: healthier soils, better-informed decisions, fewer unnecessary losses, more veteran trees in the future, and a richer urban and rural ecology.
That is the test by which I would judge the Charter.
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