The Tree Demic

Trees are moving thousands of miles in days, coming into contact with all sorts of new diseases. The booming container shipping and the cheapness of international shipping means that you can take an entire tree from one country and plant it in another. But trees have always moved around the planet - but they didn't take soil with them. Catherine nixey is a briton correspondent with the economist, and she's been visiting the country's lake district. We're in the era of the tree demic as exactly as it sounds. It's like a pandemic, but for trees. So it's hitting ash and elm and oak and beech. And it's dangerous because they're