Future sell offs create four major uncertainties: the restoration of planted ancient woodland sites (PAWS), the lack of guarantees that income from disposals will be used to support current forestry and woodland priorities such as woodland creation; the practical difficulties of ensuring that all existing public access to the current estate is maintained; and the ability of current protection mechanisms to safeguard the public value of woods to be sold.
Top of the Trust’s list is the restoration of ancient woods. If the Government is determined to be the greenest government ever then it has to find a way to secure the future of 20,000 hectares of ancient woodland sites planted up with conifers over the last 60-70 years, which it currently owns.
“Ancient woodland is our richest and most fragile habitat, our equivalent of the rainforest. Restoring 20,000ha of ancient woodland would be the one of the most significant contributions we could make to improving the captivating and spectacular wildlife of UK’s beleaguered woods”, commented Sue Holden, chief executive of the Woodland Trust.
”A substantially bigger programme of sales in the future with no means of securing their restoration would mean a massive opportunity would be lost, probably for ever,” she continued. “We feel the Commission should restore the planted ancient woods it owns, and only then should it even contemplate selling them to responsible owners.”
The conifers planted many years ago in place of native woodland cover are now reaching economic maturity yet these sites are ancient woods on the brink, retaining against all odds echoes of their past wildlife and cultural richness. The chance to restore them to native woodland is a once in a lifetime opportunity which must be grasped with great urgency. Yet there are no mechanisms in place to guarantee that if sold to commercial or private interests that restoration would take place.
Asked if the Trust would be interested in acquiring any of the sites, Sue Holden said: "We need a strategic solution to the question of the future of FC land especially of PAWS, which addresses the problem wholesale not piecemeal, site by site. Buying a few planted ancient woodland sites will only scratch the surface of the issue. We would be willing to partner the FC to ensure restoration if that is what it takes.
"Even if we were interested, there is the huge question of where we would obtain the money from and how we would ensure that our limited funds were spent on priority sites, given the likelihood of many hundreds of woods going up for sale over a period of years."
She continued: "Recent media reports and the public response to campaigns such as that of 38Degrees all demonstrate the overwhelming public feeling about the sale of the FC estate. We will go public with a campaign once the consultation promised by the Forestry Minister is launched early next year. This needs to focus on the right conservation outcomes for FC land. In the meantime we are making our views known very candidly through behind the scenes contact with the Forestry Commission, Defra and the Forestry Minister. They are in no doubt about our views on planted ancient woods, dedication and funding. When we go public, you can be sure that we will be rallying our supporters and members to voice their concerns to Government directly, just as we have done recently for the Natural Environment White Paper."