Green like rubber wellies
The long term health of the landscape and its accessibility to the public is being scythed away.
From the plan to sell off a substantial percentage of the UK's forests (some presumably for the huge N Wales windfarm projects) to the news that the Lake District is great place to dump nuclear waste ('The report will not in itself determine where a long-term nuclear dump will be sited, but it rules out much of the county outside the Lake District National Park as being unsuitable geologically.') this isn't a good news year for green issues.
There are several later articles on the forests issue but this (after its idyllic reflection) looks through a lot of the issues, including how small a vestige the remaining forests already are. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-magnificent-forest-but-the-government-may-wield-the-axe-2116454.html
Apparently the selloff will require the change of laws dating back to Magna Carta. Large scale felling may be forestalled but public access will inevitably be vastly reduced the sale price will only reflect a fraction of what the public taxes have put into forestry over the years, and strangle recent years vast increase in recreational use *.
This seems particularly senseless given all the recent surveys about British biodiversity decline over the last 40 years. The remainder will be far harder to sustain biodiversity-wise (where viable), as scattered mosaics of 'wildlife islands' across a modern landscape have been shown to be poor at sustaining the habitats and fauna they’re intended to protect and usually shrink further over time.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/
38 degrees UK 'Save our forests' petition here: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/contribute/save-our-forests Let me know of any others I should circulate.
Natural England http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ , the advisory body which would ordinarily help investigate and recommend approaches on the issues involved is to be drastically downsized: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/oct/29/environment-cuts Only 2 years ago it demonstrated its utility with the first 'State of the Natural Environment' reports - not flawless but exploiting the very wide range of information to give a new picture of our environment http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/publications/sone/default.aspx'
Apparently Defra envisaged "a managed programme of reform to further develop a competitive, thriving and resilient forestry sector that includes many sustainably-managed woods operating as parts of viable land-based businesses". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11653679) I note that sustainably-managed woods in this new future have gone from the aim to being only a footnote or at best a subsidiary component of the land purpose. They also claim there would be measures to preserve the public benefits for sold land but whatever protection existed at the outset, it seems unlikely that the level of support for public use and, in the longer term the protection itself would continue - once the land has been private for decades it would be ever easier to challenge any restrictions that remained in place. It also fails to make clear whether they're counting conservation, research and the maintenance of biodiversity as a public benefit, including all the visitor information, emergency aid and family support, or merely access to the land alone.
See DEFRA '... invitation to shape the Nature of England'http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/environment/natural/whitepaper/ , open for consultation until 30th October 2010 (so the forest selloff can't really be addressed fully by responders), the first stage
in the preparation of a White Paper on the Natural Environment. Also 'Making Space for Nature - a review of England's Wildlife Sites and Ecological Networks' (the Lawton Report http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/09/24/nature-news/) published in September 2010 which recommends is for the implementation of twelve 'EcologicalConservation Zones' which would be established through a competitive process (so of course we can't have more than 12 zones covered by the protections). How fortunate that the work of the Forestry Commission, Nature England, and other co-ordinating, scientific and advisory bodies is available to inform the consultation and feed into the decision-making process at this critical juncture.
* - fewer free recreation possibilities for those hit by redundancy of scraping by won't help national fitness campaigns reduce the burdens on the NHS, or keep people going when other free amenities we've been paying our taxes for start charging or close.
I pay my taxes quite happily, but today the reflection came that what I thought I had given to support social services and income for the vulnerable, forests, health, education, the justice framework, etc has instead all gone to support banks. (Yeah, I know that it's a hopeless simplification of the economics involved, and that letting the banks fall would have made the cuts far worse all round, but all of a sudden its how I feel.)
Happy International Year of Biodiversity
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/biodiversity/iyb/default.aspx
I hope we at least get to keep the online webresources Natural England provided.
Afterthought: 2009 article on our equivocal relationship with British nature and http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/26/environment-natural-foundation-economy
Interesting that the government is looking at divesting the nation of green resources at at time when 2 species a year are becoming extinct in the UK, it's recognised that species can't be supported without protecting their ecosystems, and the buzz about the socio-economic contribution of biodiversity grows louder ('ecosystem services' is businesspeak for the benefit of a healthy natural environment to humans and human economies). See recent articles below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11595848
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/28/accountants-hope-ecosystems
From the plan to sell off a substantial percentage of the UK's forests (some presumably for the huge N Wales windfarm projects) to the news that the Lake District is great place to dump nuclear waste ('The report will not in itself determine where a long-term nuclear dump will be sited, but it rules out much of the county outside the Lake District National Park as being unsuitable geologically.') this isn't a good news year for green issues.
There are several later articles on the forests issue but this (after its idyllic reflection) looks through a lot of the issues, including how small a vestige the remaining forests already are. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-magnificent-forest-but-the-government-may-wield-the-axe-2116454.html
Apparently the selloff will require the change of laws dating back to Magna Carta. Large scale felling may be forestalled but public access will inevitably be vastly reduced the sale price will only reflect a fraction of what the public taxes have put into forestry over the years, and strangle recent years vast increase in recreational use *.
This seems particularly senseless given all the recent surveys about British biodiversity decline over the last 40 years. The remainder will be far harder to sustain biodiversity-wise (where viable), as scattered mosaics of 'wildlife islands' across a modern landscape have been shown to be poor at sustaining the habitats and fauna they’re intended to protect and usually shrink further over time.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/
38 degrees UK 'Save our forests' petition here: https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/contribute/save-our-forests Let me know of any others I should circulate.
Natural England http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ , the advisory body which would ordinarily help investigate and recommend approaches on the issues involved is to be drastically downsized: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/oct/29/environment-cuts Only 2 years ago it demonstrated its utility with the first 'State of the Natural Environment' reports - not flawless but exploiting the very wide range of information to give a new picture of our environment http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/publications/sone/default.aspx'
Apparently Defra envisaged "a managed programme of reform to further develop a competitive, thriving and resilient forestry sector that includes many sustainably-managed woods operating as parts of viable land-based businesses". (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11653679) I note that sustainably-managed woods in this new future have gone from the aim to being only a footnote or at best a subsidiary component of the land purpose. They also claim there would be measures to preserve the public benefits for sold land but whatever protection existed at the outset, it seems unlikely that the level of support for public use and, in the longer term the protection itself would continue - once the land has been private for decades it would be ever easier to challenge any restrictions that remained in place. It also fails to make clear whether they're counting conservation, research and the maintenance of biodiversity as a public benefit, including all the visitor information, emergency aid and family support, or merely access to the land alone.
See DEFRA '... invitation to shape the Nature of England'http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/environment/natural/whitepaper/ , open for consultation until 30th October 2010 (so the forest selloff can't really be addressed fully by responders), the first stage
in the preparation of a White Paper on the Natural Environment. Also 'Making Space for Nature - a review of England's Wildlife Sites and Ecological Networks' (the Lawton Report http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/09/24/nature-news/) published in September 2010 which recommends is for the implementation of twelve 'EcologicalConservation Zones' which would be established through a competitive process (so of course we can't have more than 12 zones covered by the protections). How fortunate that the work of the Forestry Commission, Nature England, and other co-ordinating, scientific and advisory bodies is available to inform the consultation and feed into the decision-making process at this critical juncture.
* - fewer free recreation possibilities for those hit by redundancy of scraping by won't help national fitness campaigns reduce the burdens on the NHS, or keep people going when other free amenities we've been paying our taxes for start charging or close.
I pay my taxes quite happily, but today the reflection came that what I thought I had given to support social services and income for the vulnerable, forests, health, education, the justice framework, etc has instead all gone to support banks. (Yeah, I know that it's a hopeless simplification of the economics involved, and that letting the banks fall would have made the cuts far worse all round, but all of a sudden its how I feel.)
Happy International Year of Biodiversity
http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/biodiversity/iyb/default.aspx
I hope we at least get to keep the online webresources Natural England provided.
Afterthought: 2009 article on our equivocal relationship with British nature and http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/jul/26/environment-natural-foundation-economy
Interesting that the government is looking at divesting the nation of green resources at at time when 2 species a year are becoming extinct in the UK, it's recognised that species can't be supported without protecting their ecosystems, and the buzz about the socio-economic contribution of biodiversity grows louder ('ecosystem services' is businesspeak for the benefit of a healthy natural environment to humans and human economies). See recent articles below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11595848
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/28/accountants-hope-ecosystems