That said if you ever fly over the UK you'll notice it's a beautiful quilted patchwork of green fields and hedgerows. The UK used to be covered in old woodland forests. Much of it was felled over the centuries, with most of it being cut down during the medieval period.
Not a lot of ancient woodland is left here nor indeed in the US. That said California still has quite a bit. Muir Woods are on my bucket list of places to visit.
In my city they have relentlessly pursued some people who graffiti painted some trains decades ago with massive retribution lawsuits.
Yet any city official or workman can fell any number of trees with no permission whatsoever and the whole chain of command just shrugs.
A paint factory (accidentally) poured a huge amount of poison to a river. All the fish died. Nothing again really happened, all the law cases were dismissed. (The company did voluntarily repent and support later conservation efforts.)
It's actually an open scientific question how much of Europe was covered by forest vs meadows. One of the main things that argues for rather more meadows is that we have trees that grow quite poorly / not at all in forests but very well by themselves.
That said if you ever fly over the UK you'll notice it's a beautiful quilted patchwork of green fields and hedgerows. The UK used to be covered in old woodland forests. Much of it was felled over the centuries, with most of it being cut down during the medieval period.
Not a lot of ancient woodland is left here nor indeed in the US. That said California still has quite a bit. Muir Woods are on my bucket list of places to visit.
A full list of old forests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-growth_forests