White Hawthorne tree blooms grace hedgerows of the rural hillside facing Glenariff Forest Park. The other white is grazing sheep. The North Channel of the Irish Sea is visible at the foot of the glen, with the shore of Scotland just visible.
Foreground are the stumps of mature trees cut by the forest service to control the oomycete plant pathogen Phytophthora ramorum. We visited June 2014, the year before, October 2013, the Belfast Telegraph reported “Northern Ireland is close to the point where it will be impossible to eradicate a virulent disease from the forests where it has taken hold.” Glenariff Forest part was one of those forests and the tree stumps are victims of that struggle.
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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
Always wonderful to see your posts.
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Oh, thank you. Good to feel appreciated.
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Your subtitle rhymes. Given the current state of affairs, I assumed the disease was something different from what it turned out to be.
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A much different and slower moving disease, though still exists after all these years. In that way it is relevant to today.
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I should say it more often but I do love your blog.
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I learned what a Scottish “burn” is today.
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YES!!!. Now like to hear that. I grew up near one called the Dighty. There you go.
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They cut them here too to prevent the mountain pine beetle. It’s hard to lose the forest, but its the only way to preserve it.
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With Climate Change, the Mountain Pine Beetle is spreading north and east.
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