Trees

The COVID-19 pandemic had a conflicted relationship with the natural world and treescapes in particular. On the one hand, there is evidence that increasing global deforestation may encourage the transmission of dangerous new viruses into human populations, while on the other, some people saw lockdown conditions in Britain as a chance to reconnect with nature. In turn, there has on several occasions been a stated desire to create green memorials. The case studies considered are (i) the Forest of Memories, which sought to integrate digital memorialisation with tree-planting but as a small grassroots project has faced challenges gaining traction, (ii) the planned pandemic memorial expansion to the National Memorial Arboretum which, if ever fully realised, will merge remembrance of this event with an emphasis upon notions of public service and sacrifice, (iii) the Welsh Government&s;s three commemorative woodlands, which combine memorialisation with state climate policy in a manner that, I suggest, leaves uneven results, and finally (iv) the Willow Tree Memorial in Sheffield. This last project, which unlike the others exists in an urban space and features a tree made from steel, is in many ways a nuanced and engaging site, but when considered in the wider context of this chapter leaves questions about the extent to which living trees may in reality be unreliable partners for human memorialisation and how, ultimately, the potentially anthropocentric use of trees to remember human death may be more ecologically ambivalent than has been generally considered.