A long-serving South Hams tree warden has been recognised with a ceremonial planting in Staverton, marking more than four decades of quiet dedication to protecting and restoring the area’s trees.

A modest group gathered on Saturday, February 14, along Riverside Walk to honour Spencer Keys’s 45 years of service as Staverton Parish Tree Warden and a founding member of the South Hams Tree Warden Network.

The small ceremony saw the planting of a walnut and a wild cherry — chosen deliberately for their symbolism of wisdom and good fortune.

But while the event celebrated an extraordinary personal contribution, Mr Keys was clear the occasion was “never meant to be about me”, insisting instead on the ongoing responsibility to care for the landscape.

“The act of planting the trees was not about me, but to draw attention to the importance of trees and their place in our environment,” said Mr Keys. “Without trees, we will have no viable planet.”

Born in the parish, Mr Keys grew up surrounded by orchards — landscapes that have since disappeared beneath development.

As a young engineer travelling overseas, he encountered other environments where forests had vanished entirely.

Witnessing now barren deserts, that had once been covered by vast forests, changed his life forever.

Mr Keys joined the environmental movement “Men of the Trees” while working in Australia, taking part in large-scale planting efforts and protests against deforestation, before returning to Staverton in 1980 and channelling that experience into local action.

Over the decades, Mr Keys has planted countless — though probably hundreds if not thousands — of trees across the South Hams, including around 70 along Riverside Walk, many of which are now mature features of the village landscape.

“His enthusiasm for trees — and not just planting, but protecting existing and veteran trees — has encouraged many others to become tree wardens,” Cllr Mark Long, Chair of South Hams Tree Wardens Network, said during the ceremony.

Mr Keys helped shape wider environmental initiatives, including work on the arboretum at Follaton House in Totnes, and served as chair of the South Hams Tree Warden Network for many years.

Despite formally stepping back as a tree warden last autumn, fellow wardens made clear that this was not a farewell.

“Anybody who’s involved with trees never really retires,” Cllr Mark Long noted, carefully avoiding any sense that the planting marked a final act.

Mr Keys himself admitted feeling emotional at the recognition, saying he had never undertaken the work for acknowledgement but simply because it is necessary.

The ceremony also highlighted the continuing challenges facing South Hams’ treescape — from development pressures to the need to map and protect ancient and veteran specimens more effectively.

Tree wardens are now working to record historically significant trees across the district, helping build a clearer picture of what remains and how best to conserve it.

For Mr Keys, that practical, ongoing stewardship is what truly matters.

He has long argued that trees should be valued not only when newly planted, but throughout their lives — even in decay, when they support complex ecosystems.

The morning planting was modest, in keeping with the man it honoured: no large crowd, no grand speeches, just respect to a life devoted to the essential preservation of trees.