Plenty of news today about forest sell-offs and lease-offs but here's an interesting twist. Some Natural England staff are coming together to offer to manage NNRs through creating a new company to do the management work. They may see their jobs at risk and this is a way of saving them. It's an interesting idea. But would it lead to any real savings in money for the taxpayer I wonder?
And 'Would forest sell-offs and lease-offs lead to savings?' is the question asked in the papers today too. As this blog said earlier in the week - it might not be all about money but it must be partly about money. We need to get good value for money from any disposal of our land (notice I say land not trees).
Will there be an FC staff offer to manage heritage forests similar to that from NE staff if the government presses on? And might there not be some value in combining these two bits of our land, with heritage value, in some way in the future?
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Mark, One question about NNRs and I feel as I should know the answer but don't. Being public owned land NNRs can be made subject of and protected by bye-laws in addition to the SSSI legislation. If they become owned by private individuals / NGOs is that ability to creat bye-laws lost. I must try and find out.
The Cotswold Water park sightings website
My Flicker page
Now you are talking.
And will those campaigning for the future (?) of these places bung in a few few million in the way of 'community nature bonds'? Will the government free up money raised by firesales into a new bundle of assets for management in perpetuity? Will public money be used as leverage for long term capitalisation of these community assets? Surely there's more than two options here, state owned or private? The RSPB should press on innovation in properly financing alternative models (and the Government interventions to enable these) and legalistic methods of locking in public value (e.g. birds and wildlife).
This could get interesting.