Blog post by Nick Phillips, Senior Forestry Policy Officer
As we approach the centenary of the birth of public forests, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to guide the way they will look for another 100 years. This is a pivotal year for the Public Forest Estate in England, which covers an area the size of Oxfordshire and represents 18% of the woods and forests in England.
The Estate includes household names like the Forest of Dean and the inspirational mix of restored heathlands and ancient woodlands that form the New Forest. Everyone has a favourite bit.
The Government should never forget the level of public outrage and grass roots campaigners who stood up to fight for them when their future in public hands was questioned in 2011.
The Government backed down under the pressure and asked an Independent panel of experts, chaired by the Right Reverend James Jones (the Bishop of Liverpool), to work out a different vision. The panel was adamant that “the Public Forest Estate should remain in public ownership, and be defined in statute as land held in trust for the nation”.
The Bishop’s panel of experts, which included the RSPB’s Mike Clarke, also recommended that its future remit should be to “sustain and maximise the public value of the Estate, in terms of wildlife, access, recreation, education and cultural heritage". In other words, all the reasons the public value and fought for public forests.
At the end of this month the Government will meet to talk about the Public Forest Estate’s future and it’s expected there could be an announcement about how the Estate will be funded. If funding is cut the future of our public forests is threatened and the wildlife and people that value it so highly will really lose out.
This is the year that Government will show their hand, in terms of whether they give the Public Forest Estate the protection, tools, funding and duty to deliver the panel’s vision. And at a cost of just 38p each, it is fantastically good value as far as taxpayers’ money is concerned.
Watch this space...we certainly will be. And we’ll keep you up to date, too. They are, after all, your forests.