Natural England has been seeking 400 voluntary redundancies and early retirements amongst its staff - and has had, in round terms, about 300 offers. So it is looking for another 100 non-voluntary job cuts.
This is from a staff of about 2400. And the next few years will see another 400 jobs go - the consequences of c30% cuts in money from government.
No-one has suggested chopping down 30% of England's forests - it's just not on the cards.
Are the cuts at NE just dead wood? - I don't think so, and anyway, dead wood is valuable ecologically.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
As a mentioned previously, with such high levels of redundancies it is the loss of the valuable experience and expertise that is so damaging. On top of that, Natural England is the one and only organisation that has the legal powers to properly enforce protection of our Sites of Speciel Scientific Interest (SSSIs). The likely hood, perhaps a certainty, is that due to sheer lack of personnel they will effectively become increasingly impotent in being able to enforce that protection. Unscrupulous people will be quick to "cotton on" to this situation and exploit it. In other words it seems to me that it is very likely we will soon start to see a rise in damage to our SSSIs and "death by a thousand cuts" seems quite likely in every way.
redkite