Terms

Ancient Trees maps remarkable old trees and the walks that string them together. These terms cover using the site and the app, and what happens to anything you send us. They are written to be read, not to be survived.

Using it

The map, the trees and their stories are free to read, with or without an account. Do not scrape the site wholesale, resell the data as your own, or use it to harm a tree or the people who look after one.

Your account

An account is one email address and the trees you keep. No password. In the app you may also choose a display name and a picture so other people can find you and follow you; both are optional and neither has to be your real name or face. You can delete the account at any time from your account page, and deleting it removes your address and everything attached to it.

Other people

A name and a picture other people can see come with one rule, and it is not negotiable: nothing offensive, abusive, threatening, obscene or impersonating somebody else. There is no tolerance for it here and no warning system to work through. If you see any of it, the three dots beside a person let you report them or block them; a report reaches us and a block hides them from you straight away. We read every report, we remove what does not belong, and we close the accounts of people who put it there.

Do not use somebody else's name, face or photographs as your own, and do not use the app to harass anybody.

What you send us

When you photograph a tree, add one we do not have, correct something, or send a tip, that reaches us. By sending it you give Ancient Trees permission to use it: to store it, crop and edit it, publish it on the site and in the app, share it on our social media accounts, and use it in anything that tells people about Ancient Trees. That includes letting the platforms we post on show it. The permission is worldwide, free of charge, has no end date and cannot be withdrawn.

Once a photograph of yours is published, it stays. It survives you deleting your account, and it is the one thing that does. The reason is the map itself: a tree page that loses its picture is a worse page for everybody who comes after, and the picture is often the only one that exists of that tree. What does not stay is you. There is no name beside it to begin with, the link to your account goes, and what is left is a photograph of a tree that nothing ties to you.

You keep the copyright in your photographs, and nothing stops you using your own picture anywhere else, including selling it. What you give us is the permission above, and you cannot take it back once you have sent the photograph.

Send only what is yours to send. A photograph you took yourself is fine; one you found somewhere is not.

A photograph should be of the tree. People often end up in the picture, standing under it or walking past, and that is fine. If somebody can be recognised in yours, you are the one who makes sure they are happy to be in it, the same as when you post a photograph anywhere else. Anybody who can be recognised in a photograph we published can ask us to take it off, through a privacy request, and we do.

What we do with it

We decide what goes on the public map. Most of what arrives is checked, and some of it is published; the rest stays yours and stays in your own collection whether or not it ever joins the map everybody sees.

A published photograph carries no name at all. If a tree has no picture, or yours is better than the one there, we may put it on that page, and nothing beside it says who took it. The app says so on the screen where you take it. We do not publish your name or your address, and we do not publish your collection: what you have ticked off is yours and is shown to nobody.

A photograph often carries where it was taken and when. We use that to place the tree. We do not build a picture of where you go, we do not sell it, and we do not share it with advertisers.

Removing things

Delete your account and everything attached to it goes with it: your address, your collection, your sightings and their photographs, your name and your picture.

One thing stays, and it is the exception worth reading. A photograph of yours that we already published on a tree's page stays on that page. Your name comes off it, and nothing is left connecting it to you. A tree you added that we published stays on the map for the same reason, as a tree rather than as something of yours. Both are unlinked within a day rather than instantly, because these pages are built rather than served live. The one reason a published photograph comes off is a person in it: anybody who can be recognised in it can send a privacy request and it goes.

Photographs sent before 4 October 2026 were sent under the earlier version of these terms, which said we would take one off whenever you asked. That promise stands for those photographs.

What we do not promise

Trees fall, gates close, councils fell things without telling us, and a pin can be wrong. We say so on the page when we know a location is rough, and we correct what readers report, but we cannot promise that any tree is still standing or that you can reach it today.

Walking is yours to judge. Routes here are suggestions worked out from where the trees stand, not signposted trails, and they are not checked for traffic, surface or safety. Look where you are going.

Changes, and the law

When these terms change, the date below changes with them. Dutch law applies.

Questions, or something you want removed: write to us.

Last updated: 4 October 2026