It has been released to the press by the University of Oxford Botanic Garden that Oxford City Council and Oxford University have decided the iconic black pine known as 'Tolkien's Tree' is to be cut down. It has been stated that two branches have fallen from the tree and as this causes safety issues to the visitors of the Botanic Garden, the decision has been made to have it cut down completely without resorting to any preventive measures.

There are many many options of preventing the safety risks to the visitors such as fencing off the area surrounding the tree so that visitors can still enjoy and experince 'Tolkien's Tree' as it is, and resorting to the very widely used modern bracing and cabling methods practiced by professional arborists every day to secure aging branches, to name a few...

The sad news that two major branches of the tree has recently fallen could have easily been prevented with these bracing and cabling methods. The fact that the Botanic Garden's press release on the matter stresses in two seperate places that inspections on the resident trees are annually made only increases suspicions of neglect and misconduct, as they appear to be pre-emptive explanations to cover for possible errors. Even if there is no evidence of misdoing, neglecting to brace and cable the 215 year old tree to prevent the fall of two major branches begs an explanation to the Tolkien community and the world at large.

We are also appalled by the way the University of Oxford Botanic Garden has chosen to handle the situation by issuing a statement of their 'decision' to cut down 'Tolkien's Tree' without opening such a public matter to discussion by the millions of readers of J.R.R. Tolkien worldwide. Such a blatant imposition of such a drastic measure totally contradicts with England's claims of an 'open society' and betrays Tolkien's lifelong work on the importance of being the 'free peoples of Middle-Earth', having the right to contribute their say on such matters of public importance.

We feel turning to the atrocious decision of the complete cut down of 'Tolkien's Tree' before resorting to the methods and precautions that will easily eliminate the risks to the garden's visitors will be a downright 'murder' of this 215 year old legacy from 'The Author of the Century'.

We beg all those responsible to choose life instead of death and use all in their power to preserve one of the few remaining legacies from Professor J.R.R. Tolkien.

A recent discovery of a lost poem recording by our beloved Professor himself puts the matter into perspective:

"I look East, and West,

And I look North, and South,

And I do not see a Sauron,

But I see very many descendants of Saruman!"

Tolkien has also stated that:

"Every tree has its enemy, few have an advocate."

"In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies."

The time has come for all those who love Tolkien to do their duty to him by being the advocate for his favorite tree and take their stand against all it's enemies. Let us not unwittingly serve the descendants of Saruman by staying silent.