In 2001 there were 1.3bn trees in England. That’s 25 for every person in the country, the highest numbers since the first world war. One article predicted that in 2020 there would be more trees in England than in 1086, when 15% of the country was cloaked in woodland. Part of the reason for this buoyant outlook was the country’s response to the great storm of 1987. We mourned for our ancient yews and the beeches of Chanctonbury Ring. Petitions were drafted, many thousands of saplings were planted. We rebuilt our woods with solemn and impassioned dedication.

The predictions will not fall short. Across the UK, the number of trees has sharply increased. In 2015 there were 3bn trees, the equivalent of 47, a sizeable copse, for every person, around twice as many as in 2001. These statistics might evoke a bosky eden where the wild wood is reclaiming the land, yet recent years have also seen a return of large-scale felling, with Network Rail’s plans to cut down millions more trees the latest example.

Network Rail’s view of trees is understandable. Leaves on the line can cause trains to overshoot stations, and branches and entire trees falling on to tracks cause delay or halt journeys. Between March 2016 and March 2017, 233 trains collided with fallen trees. The effect on customers cost the company hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation per year.

But it is unlikely that Network Rail or Sheffield council – which has felled around 6,000 trees as part of a project to “improve the condition of the streets” of the city – have considered the impact on humans caused by the removal of so much verdure. Research shows that time spent among trees causes levels of the stress hormone cortisol to decrease, lowers blood pressure, increases the number of active natural killer cells, so boosting immune function – and improves mood and concentration. In Japan, shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing”, is a widespread approach to improving physical and mental health. Many of these beneficial effects are delivered by both phytoncides – volatile oils released by plants and trees to fend off infection – and by contact with beneficial soil bacteria.

Peer-reviewed research shows that spending time among trees has favourable effects on several of our body systems, but there is evidence that simply seeing trees can confer beneficial neuronal and physiological changes. Patients recovering from surgery have shorter post-operative stays and need fewer potent analgesics if their room has a window overlooking trees. The incidence and severity of mental health conditions is increasing in the UK, and elements of our environment that can benefit mental health are more important than ever. What a pity there will be fewer green vistas as a consequence of trackside felling.

Pollarding is a tree-pruning technique that can prevent individual specimens from outgrowing their allotted space or obstructing electric wires and streetlights in an urban setting. Many of the trees felled in Sheffield were mature limes, a species particularly suited to pollarding. This approach would temporarily diminish leaf cover in the streets, but in the longer term would conserve habitats for birds and insects and ensure that the mental health benefits of trees could be maintained.

Meanwhile, traditional hedgelaying or coppicing techniques could be applied to several deciduous species that skirt rail tracks. If hedgelaying techniques had been deployed before the nesting season began in February, birds would still have been able to raise their young in the areas of trackside where felling has taken place. If even a small proportion of the felled lineside timber was left in situ it would create a habitat for wood-boring insects, which in turn would provide food for birds.

The response to the Network Rail leak was swift. On Friday, Bromley council issued tree preservation orders to protect stands of mature ash, sycamore and oak specimens growing along the main lines in that borough; the rail minister, Jo Johnson, called a halt to felling to prevent more nests being harmed during the breeding season, and ordered a review.

We are a sylvan nation, enchanted by trees; they instil awe and wonder in us, and this biophilia confers an intense urge to be near them. Half a million people attended marches or signed petitions against the privatisation of 258,000 hectares of publicly owned woodland in 2011: within months the government withdrew its plans. The outcry against these latest tree-felling plans shows something similar.

Our nation’s need for woodland and green spaces has never been greater. It transcends partisan considerations and the quest for profit. It is perhaps our biochemical and corporeal connection with trees, the subconscious knowledge that they bring balm to body and mind, that fuels such protests. There are more sensitive ways to use chainsaws that would permit the preservation of both urban specimens and the green vistas viewed from trains. Keeping these trees in place would benefit humans as well as ecological systems.

• Emma Mitchell is a naturalist and author