[andyjohnson0]

I'm disappointed by the amount of cynicism on display here. Yes, it was "just" a tree, and we have others. It also seems that the stump is still alive, so in some sense it wasnt "killed".

But it was also a thing of beauty that was deliberately mutilated for no reason. I think many people worry that this kind of casual destruction is becoming increasingly commonplace, and that valuing natural beauty is becoming harder to even comprehend in the coarsend popular culture of this little island.

Edit to add:

Over the last few years in the UK a great many ancient trees have been cut down to build HS2, as well as various roads. To the developers they were just an inconvenience: in the way, and not offering any opportunity for value extraction except as dead timber. They were probably also not as instagrammable as the tree in question.

Mostly the media coverage of this focussed on the human conflict, not the trees themselves. I wonder whether we're losing our ability to even talk about the dignity and intrinsic value of non-human things.

[DrBazza]

On the other hand HS2 will end up providing a net increase in woodland.

Are you sure you mean ancient and not veteran? Ancient trees usually have some rather special protections.