I had thought that I would be on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning - but experience shows that you can't count a Today Prog interview until it's broadcast. The democratic future of the people of Egypt really is more important than whether we get a Forest and Wildlife Service which can deliver a better future for our forests. But I will come back to that idea on Monday. And just in passing, I wonder what Mubarak would have thought of the Public Bodies Bill?
Yesterday there was quite a lot of pick up on yesterday's blog about the fact that we don't think that charities would find it easy to pick up management of the New Forest - and that the RSPB isn't volunteering to do it.. This blog was picked up by the Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Star, BBC online and a large number of regional newspapers.
And yesterday's announcement on a delay to forest sales is in the Guardian, BBC online, the Mirror and elsewhere.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
A day asleep after my night shift I quote from the Telegraph below; while I have for some time being saying that we need to consider the uplands well how right I was. I did nt have the stats but there they are below; there is a massive opportunity with the sort of Forest and Wildlife Service that debate on these pages has helped shape to influence the forest landscapes of our National Parks.
"Chris Reid, senior policy officer at the Campaign for National Parks, which is home to about a third of all Forestry Commission land in England, said: "It is very worrying. Lots of things are potentially under threat if the forest land is sold.
"New owners that weren't public bodies could potentially close off access other than the existing legal minimum provisions.
"They could close visitors centres currently on Forestry Commission land unless they thought they would be moneymaking. They could charge for things like mountain bike trails that are currently free.
"The private estates can do what they like, there are no guarantees.
"There are a lot of benefits of the land being within public ownership; they have economies of scale and can tackle big projects like deer management."
Of the 256,797 hectares of Forestry Commission land in England, 85,795 hectares fall within National Park boundaries, with large areas in the New Forest, North York Moors, Northumberland, Lake District and South Downs National Parks".
Peter Plover