A-B-Tree - Celebrating the Culture in Silviculture

Over the past two years students at the Scottish School of Forestry (SSF) have been writing poetry, immersing in Gaelic tree tradition and perhaps even trying out the odd magic spell. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the University of the Highlands (UHI), of which SSF is a part, literature and creative writing students have been getting to grips with the distinguishing features of blackthorn and hawthorn, the spread of Chalara dieback and other issues in forest ecology. This has all been happening under the aegis of the ‘A-B-Tree’ project, which celebrates the ancient connection between trees and writing represented by the Gaelic tree alphabet (18 native woodland species each linked to a letter of the alphabet) by introducing and researching interdisciplinary learning between literature and forestry. This report gives a flavour of what has been going on and what has been learned through this poetic inquiry into forestry.