I feel a bit for Defra over the subject of flogging off the family trees - the nation is up in arms over it. But it's not clear what 'it' is yet.
Every now and then Caroline Spelman produces reassurances in the media or parliament which actually look quite reassuring - see here, here and here. and yet the subject does not go away (see here, here, here and here). Let's wait and see what the consultation says - and then look to fix anything that is wrong with it. Or maybe I'm getting soft?
Back in October this blog set out the RSPB's view that there may be some sense in the state selling off some purely commercial, intensive forest plantations and yet we would be worried if forests of high nature conservation value are not protected. That remains our overall take on the subject.
I can understand why the residents of the Forest of Dean do not want their forest destroyed - but as I understand it, the Forest of Dean is Crown land and can't be sold. Am I wrong?
What we may see is that some forest land is sold - let's make sure they are the right areas. It isn't unreasonable for government to look at selling off some assets or to look at different methods to get those forests managed. But let's see what government proposes. Maybe we in the RSPB will hate the proposals - and if so then we'll say so, and be as bolshy as everyone else!
And I have just noticed that the article in the Independent over the Christmas break about NGOs and NNRs prompted a very nice letter from a Mr Crocker from Gloucestershire and a slightly blustering letter from Defra Minister James Paice. Mr Crocker - nice letter though it was - is wrong to say that the RSPB is rich and wrong to say that we don't know much about all those species that are not birds - but all the nice things he says are completely true. And Mr Paice seems to say that the Independent article is wrong and then confirms much of what it said! That's clear then.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hello Mark and my fellow posters
First let me preface my comments by saying that I admire and am grateful for bodies like the RSPB and the work that you do more than I can say, and I'm sure you'll be lobbying furiously over the proposed woodland selloff in due course, but, but, but ... I'm worried, worried sick, basically.
The RSPB just doesn't seem to be treating this threat with the extreme urgency that it demands, and I can't help feeling that your organisation can't quite gets its head around the sheer blank-eyed indifference of the people who would drive this through, and, most of all, those who would profit enormously from it. All the years of campaigning, of consciousness-raising, of opening eyes to the natural wonders that could fill our every day might come to absolutely nothing ...you've just got to take on board that we're all dealing with people here who would treat the most precious, spirit-affirming and life-saturated wildlife haven with all the care and attention they'd give to a can of peas.
OK, so I run the risk of entering (or am already deeply in) headless chicken territory here, but please Mark, we're talking about things that have been growing for (thousands?) of years, and which might be trashed in months - on our watch. So, yes, this is emotional - among other things.
So what I'm asking, pleading for - in the generality - is a sense of urgency commensuate with the threat. I have been following the technical aspects of the proposals clearly and closely and nothing I've seen suggests that I should be dampening down my alarm. And what I'm asking, pleading for - in the specific - is that the RSPB drops its rather standoffish approach to the 38 degrees 'Save our Forests' petition (I'm not connected with them in any way). Yes perhaps it is a little alarmist (I don't know), and yes, perhaps a little emotive too, but come on, it's an insurance policy. It's a shriek of anguish (just read some of the comments accompanying the signatures) from the very sort of people who established and fought to perpetuate the ideals of the RSPB against all the forces that would have just destroyed. So let's not knock it. We can lobby as well.
Nothing communicates to the distracted and overburdened general public, who probably know little or nothing about this selloff, like good, solid numbers. Don't we all recall the attention that the 10, Downing Street road-pricing petition attracted? I hope you'll forgive my criticism Mark, but I do sense a wave of disdain from the RSPB and from the Wildlife Trusts for anything so trivial as a petition, but this is what the media pick up on, this is what will really get through thick government skulls that massive numbers of people care very deeply about this, and, that massive numbers of votes may be lost in the future unless they scrap these proposals.
So please, Mark, can't we please have some good solid support from the RSPB for the 38 degrees petition?
You have it within your gift to urge, what? 250 000 more signatories over in the petition's direction. If it takes behind-the-scenes lobbying as well, then I'm sure you'll do it superbly, but we've just got to smack the ecologically illiterate AND US between the eyes before, during, and after as well. I'm afraid that if we 'wait and see what the consultation says - and then look to fix anything that is wrong with it' as you wrote above it will be too late to raise a massive petition, and too late to galvanise people for the fight ahead. If it's all just a matter of committees, the why would the RSPB bother attracting members? So let us - everyone in the conservation community - prepare arguments and counter-arguments, prepare for a long fight, but let's pull together and push as many names as we can beg, borrow or steal on this petition as if our lives depended on it!