For the past forty years, Eryck de Rubercy has lived among the trees of an estate whose park was designed by the famous landscape architect Paul de Choulot. He has written several books on trees. L’univers des arbres, a large scientific, historical and literary volume with multiple entries, including a 250-page arboricultural glossary, begins with a hundred pages on writers’ love of trees. A mine of erudition and poetry.

Le FIGARO. – Reading your work, it seems that writers have been pioneers in the defense of trees. Could they have sensed, long before science did, their eminent role in life on earth?

ERYCK DE RUBERCY. – You are no doubt thinking of Ronsard’s admirable text entitled Contre les bûcherons de Gastine. He describes a logging operation as a “murderous sacrilege”. These words, sacrilege and murder, are very strong. By comparison, the term ecocide, used today to designate a crime against the environmentseems weak!…