First organised in 2011, the European Tree of the Year was inspired by the Tree of the Year contest organised in the Czech Republic by the Czech Environmental Partnership Foundation.

The main aim of the European Tree of the Year contest is to highlight the meaning and importance of old trees in the natural and cultural heritage. The contest doesn’t focus on beauty, size or age but rather on the tree’s story and its connection to people: the role of trees in communities. Moreover, the contest aims at making trees a topic of international debate.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people participate in the contest to vote for the finalists. In the last years, the number of participating countries increased from five to 14.

The contest doesn’t focus on beauty, size or age but rather on the tree’s story and its connection to people

The winner of this year’s edition is an oak tree on a football field in Estonia, which received 59,836 votes. The 150-year-old oak tree is at the heart of the Orissaare community, literally so as it grows in the middle of a football stadium. Legend has it that Stalin once sent two tractors to pull it out of the ground but the cables kept breaking – it still has marks from the cables.

A great plane in Tata, Hungary, received 53,487 points and came in second place. This tree has stood on the banks of the Tata lake for more than 230 years, ever since it was brought from Versailles by a member of the Esterhazy family.

Third place went to a poplar pollard from the Remolinar region in Spain, which received 13,951 votes. Historically, pollard trees give a lot to the community: leaf fodder and wood for fuel and building. Probably the biggest concentration of pollard polars in Europe can be found in Aguilar de Alfambra, where there are some 4,700 exemplars. In 2009, this particular tree, which is 250 years old, was chosen to symbolise 800 years of pollarding in the region.