The winner of this year’s Woodland Heritage Peter Savill Award is Lord Gardiner of Kimble, Senior Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, and until very recently Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
Past Peter Savill Award winner, longstanding Woodland Heritage member, and nationally respected forest manager and oak grower, Miles Barne, presented Lord Gardiner with the perpetual trophy under an oak tree at Sotterley.
Photo: Stephen Taber Photography 2021
At a time when there has been so much emphasis on the importance of stopping the spread of a human disease, it is apt that the winner of this year’s Peter Savill Award is a person who for many years has fought for and has promoted the threats posed by diseases (and pests) affecting the UK’s trees.
Whilst Minister for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity, Lord Gardiner’s brief included landscape such as National Parks and ‘AONBs’, but it was his drive to improve the health of animals and bees, but particularly for the forestry sector and the health of the nation’s trees that made him such an effective champion, as the country has been beset with so many pests and diseases affecting our treescape.
Biosecurity, including endemic and exotic plant and animal disease, invasive alien species and even Kew Gardens, were all within Lord Gardiner’s portfolio, which meant that Woodland Heritage had the pleasure of working with Lord Gardiner for over five years, itself a remarkable length of tenure for a ministerial appointment.
From the outset, Lord Gardiner saw the potential of Action Oak, launching it to an invited audience initially in the House of Lords in October 2017, before the full public launch at RHS Chelsea Flower Show the following May.
Later that year, at the launch of Action Oak’s ‘Celebrating our Oaks’ book and tour, Lord Gardiner both celebrated the progress with research into key threats to the Oak, but at the same time showed his strong desire to turn the science into practical guidance for woodland managers. This would have been music to the ears for the late-Peter Goodwin, Woodland Heritage co-founder, whose film ‘Saving our Oak’ Lord Gardiner had launched in November 2017.
In 2018, Lord Gardiner launched the Tree Health Resilience Strategy, its aims now reflected in the England Trees Action Plan published in May.
A strong advocate of both the GB Plant Biosecurity Strategy and the work of Defra’s Plant Health Team, this led to the creation of the new Plant Healthy self-assessment and certification schemes, timed to coincide with the International Year of Plant Health in 2020, which also saw the launch of the inaugural Plant Health Week.
A practical countryman, Lord Gardiner is a partner in a family farm, as well as having held high-level positions with the Countryside Alliance between 1995 and 2010.