A UK non-profit has leveraged the special relationship that the British have for trees to create an ‘Ancient Tree Inventory' to coordinate conservation, environmental activism, and scientific research by allowing anyone familiar with an ancient tree to record and share its existence with the country.

Perhaps a lesser-known trait in the world at large of the British is their faithful love and dedication to the surprising numbers of ancient and elder trees on their islands.

Even by the late Neolithic, much of the woodlands that would have covered lower Britain had been cleared by stone axes. Waves of immigration and warfare continually reduced the size of forests, and industrialization accelerated it even further.

Despite this, there are hundreds of thousands of trees on the British Isles that are hundreds of years old.

The Ancient Tree Inventory organized by the Woodland Trust is more than just a national tree registry, such as they have in Italy; it's crowdsourced, and each tree is not only measured by its size but by the number of species living on or inside it.

Italy's Monumental Tree Registry has about 22,000 individuals-the ATI from Woodland Trust has almost ten times as many.

"As I find and record these magnificent trees, I'm grateful to be playing a small part in helping to protect them and to preserve them for [posterity]," writes Kevin Stanley, an ancient tree "verifier."

The Woodland Trust maintains an app as well as printed sheets to allow anybody to officially register the location and characteristics of ancient, ‘veteran,' or ‘notable' trees, which can then be found on a GPS map on the Trust's website.

Ancient trees are fundamental to the health of forested ecosystems worldwide. Having survived myriads of storms, insects, cold snaps, and droughts, their seeds contain vital genetic memories to help future trees adapt to changing conditions.

Studies done on woodland health have shown that when a forest loses too many ancients or elders, the overall survival of the whole ecosystem falls precipitously. By contrast, forests that have their ancients are much more likely to maintain high biodiversity and canopy cover, even those that exist in unstable areas.

The Woodland Trust every year organizes the Tree of the Year contest in the UK to raise awareness and celebrate these ancient woody Britons. See this year's contestants here.

WATCH the Ancient Tree Inventory explainer video below…

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