A 5,000-year-old tree could die because tourists keep ripping off its branches

Britain’s oldest tree that has stood for 3,000 – 5,000 years may be gone soon.

Tourists have been ripping off branches from the Fortingall Yew, in Perthshire, to keep as souvenirs which has reduced its life expectancy to just another 50 years, according to campaigners.

Visitors have also been damaging the tree by climbing into the caged enclosure in the kirkyard via a listed wall and tying beads and ribbons to its branches.

Tree warden for Fortingall Neil Hooper said: ‘Recently the metal plaque put up by the Tree Council has been forced down and twisted flat face down, which must have taken considerable force, also by someone climbing into the enclosure.’

Tayside Biodiversity Community Partnership co-ordinator Catherine Lloyd added: ‘They are attacking this poor tree, it’s stressed, and whether that’s the reason this poor tree is not doing very well at the moment, we don’t know.’

Mrs Lloyd estimated if things kept going the way they were the ancient yew, located in the Fortingall Churchyard, may ‘keel over’ in 50 or 300 years.

Mrs Lloyd hopes they will be able to keep the ancient yew specimen alive by taking seedlings and planting them at various kirkyards in Perthshire and Angus, as well at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

She added: ‘The history that one tree has seen, it’s gobsmacking.

‘I would love to look back into time.

‘You look at it and think it’s been there for at least 3,000 years, 1,000 years before the Romans came across Scotland.

‘But we know so little about it.’

The Tayside Biodiversity Community Partnership are raising money for a £1,500 ‘DNA test’ to determine the true origin of the tree, which they are currently calling Fortingall kirkyard Yew.

The Church Yew Tree project is a ten-year programme working in partnership with the Royal Botanic Garden, which has its own yew tree hedge, which originates from cuttings from the ancient Fortingall Yew, and this will be used to grow on between 30 to 50 new saplings.

By 2020 the project aims to have identified more than 20 churchyards, which will accept the saplings for planting.