In the meantime, picking up on the biodiversity offsetting issue, once again with Paterson’s example of woodlands as ideal for offsetting we come up against an issue of massive importance: ignorance. How can he have chosen this most inappropriate of examples bearing in mind that of all habitats ancient woodland carries its history – both cultural and ecological with it – as both Oliver Rackham and George Peterken have explained with a lucidity only people who have never read them could fail to understand. However, this is just an extension of the forest sales fiasco, when having cut the Government’s experts in the Forestry commission out of the loop, the generalist civil servants had not even the most basic understanding of what they were being expected to advise on. This is an issue which is becoming vitally important way beyond nature conservation – as the EA have already pointed out in the Somerset Levels, simply throwing plant and concrete at current flooding issues won’t work. But how are we going to get over the hump of understanding to a new approach to landuse when almost all the people involved (and that includes many nature conservationists) have only the vaguest idea of how we got to where we are and the relative impacts of the land use decisions we’ve made an continue to make.
Hope you soon get connected as it must disrupt you terribly.
Think Roderick makes a very valid point about lots of experts about all things connected with land use.
rspb seem to have lots of problems with my actions and comments.Firstly seem to have problems with use of logs for woodburner,apparently all old wood now needed for bugs now rspb have to push this for new members even though in this area there is more than enough fallen wood for both uses.Next the person involved took offence at my thoughts that although Ivy was a great plant for wildlife it acted as a tree killer by getting so heavy at top of tree and the wind catching it and tree blowing down.He suggested I read up rspb Ivy management report which he obviously said get up to the crown of tree and remove the upper part of Ivy,as if all us country folk have nothing better to do than climb trees doing that.
Latest installment shows how touchy they are.A silly Hen Harrier blogger who seems to get no comments(maybe no readers either)except myself made a fantastic quote of asking any estates interested in diversionary feeding to please give her a ring.Now considering the estates must be happy with no breeding H Hs in England and her job is to get H Hs to prosper in England that seems a laughable ask.For goodness sake surely her job should entail asking all estates would they take part.
My comment along the lines of H Hs neglected while rspb ponces around with Hedgehog house collected a final warning.How laughable that a member cannot make valid criticism.Valid in the sense that whatever anyone’s opinion is every time some other animal takes time on the agenda then there is less time to spend on serious bird issues.
They have almost got it where unless anyone is a yes man/woman then you are not allowed to say anything,in fact similar to NFU,both organisations organise thing so that what the people at the top want they get.
Have at last had time to write this – with thanks to those who’s comments from this blog I nicked (and I hope they won’t mind):
[ ] MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear …
Biological offsetting and ancient woodland
May I start by wishing you and your family a very happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed the Christmas break.
I write concerning comments by the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, reported in last weekend’s media where he appears to suggest that offsetting – in this case planting trees in designated areas – could compensate for ancient woodland destroyed by development for housing, roadbuilding or similar.
Needless to say I was dismayed to hear of such comments which I believe are crass, betray a profound ignorance and I would suggest have made the Secretary of State open to ridicule. When you consider he is paid by all of us to safeguard the future of our countryside, it is inevitable that they will further erode any confidence in the current government’s environmental record.
The clue is in the title ‘ancient woodland’ – by definition something that is ancient cannot ever be adequately replaced by instant replanting. Ancient woodlands are not just collections of old trees, they contain an array of rare and specialist species that cannot be replaced in any suitable timescales by new plantations, which do not contain these species. To offset, should mean to provide these elsewhere. This is not what is being offered. What Mr Paterson is proposing is therefore simple habitat destruction.
The idea that artificial woodland can be recreated in even ‘a few hundred years’ is wishful thinking. The 400 year threshold for woods being considered ‘ancient’ is not because that is how long it takes to develop a characteristic ancient woodland flora but because woods for which we have evidence of their existence back to the 1600s are considered to have been naturally established as planting of woodland was not common before that time. Many ancient woodlands show evidence of having existed back to at least the early Middle Ages and it is possible that many have been continuously forested all the way back to the primaeval forest. It is also worth pointing out that in addition to the biodiversity aspect, the cultural and archaeological significance of ancient woodland would also be impossible to recreate by planting out a few hundred hectares with saplings somewhere ‘within a couple of hours travel by car’.
Our recent economic difficulties are well know and we do have a housing shortage in Britain. We do need new development to tackle that problem but there are still many thousands of acres of consented land that house builders are sitting on as land-banks waiting for the upturn. And there are many brown-field and indeed greenfield sites that would be suitable for development which do not endanger ancient woodland. There is therefore no logic to this proposal. If we have no room, to build except on ancient woods, how do we plan to fit 100 trees into our limited space from which we took one? Some habitats should be sacrosanct and ancient woodland, along with wetlands and other rare and declining habitats should at all times be protected.
It is worth saying that off-setting is very controversial and I am certainly not suggesting here that if ancient woodland is excluded from any biodiversity off-setting scheme then everything is ok. It is important to understand that the problems with biodiversity off-setting go beyond the ancient woodland issue, but this example does throw those problems into sharp relief.
Could I please ask you to write to the Secretary of State to ask him to explain further his proposal, what advice he received from his officials and what research his department undertook into the history and ecology of ancient woodland which lead to the frankly astonishing mistaken belief that artificial recent planting could in any way compensate for their loss? For example, is he aware of the painstaking research over many decades by well known writers on historical ecology such as Oliver Rackham and George Peterken? The latter are not hidden away in obscure journals but have been published in best selling books on the subject over the last forty years. Perhaps you might also ask him if he might consider withdrawing his remarks and what he plans to do following this debacle to restore public trust in him and his department’s ability to act as the government’s champion for our countryside? How will he now seek to ensure any development on rural land is managed sustainably and will not result in loss of unique irreplaceable habitat?
Thank you, and I look forward to your reply.
—
Comments are closed.
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Hope you get re-connected soon, Mark !
In the meantime, picking up on the biodiversity offsetting issue, once again with Paterson’s example of woodlands as ideal for offsetting we come up against an issue of massive importance: ignorance. How can he have chosen this most inappropriate of examples bearing in mind that of all habitats ancient woodland carries its history – both cultural and ecological with it – as both Oliver Rackham and George Peterken have explained with a lucidity only people who have never read them could fail to understand. However, this is just an extension of the forest sales fiasco, when having cut the Government’s experts in the Forestry commission out of the loop, the generalist civil servants had not even the most basic understanding of what they were being expected to advise on. This is an issue which is becoming vitally important way beyond nature conservation – as the EA have already pointed out in the Somerset Levels, simply throwing plant and concrete at current flooding issues won’t work. But how are we going to get over the hump of understanding to a new approach to landuse when almost all the people involved (and that includes many nature conservationists) have only the vaguest idea of how we got to where we are and the relative impacts of the land use decisions we’ve made an continue to make.
Hope you soon get connected as it must disrupt you terribly.
Think Roderick makes a very valid point about lots of experts about all things connected with land use.
rspb seem to have lots of problems with my actions and comments.Firstly seem to have problems with use of logs for woodburner,apparently all old wood now needed for bugs now rspb have to push this for new members even though in this area there is more than enough fallen wood for both uses.Next the person involved took offence at my thoughts that although Ivy was a great plant for wildlife it acted as a tree killer by getting so heavy at top of tree and the wind catching it and tree blowing down.He suggested I read up rspb Ivy management report which he obviously said get up to the crown of tree and remove the upper part of Ivy,as if all us country folk have nothing better to do than climb trees doing that.
Latest installment shows how touchy they are.A silly Hen Harrier blogger who seems to get no comments(maybe no readers either)except myself made a fantastic quote of asking any estates interested in diversionary feeding to please give her a ring.Now considering the estates must be happy with no breeding H Hs in England and her job is to get H Hs to prosper in England that seems a laughable ask.For goodness sake surely her job should entail asking all estates would they take part.
My comment along the lines of H Hs neglected while rspb ponces around with Hedgehog house collected a final warning.How laughable that a member cannot make valid criticism.Valid in the sense that whatever anyone’s opinion is every time some other animal takes time on the agenda then there is less time to spend on serious bird issues.
They have almost got it where unless anyone is a yes man/woman then you are not allowed to say anything,in fact similar to NFU,both organisations organise thing so that what the people at the top want they get.
Have at last had time to write this – with thanks to those who’s comments from this blog I nicked (and I hope they won’t mind):
[ ] MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Dear …
Biological offsetting and ancient woodland
May I start by wishing you and your family a very happy New Year and I hope you enjoyed the Christmas break.
I write concerning comments by the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, reported in last weekend’s media where he appears to suggest that offsetting – in this case planting trees in designated areas – could compensate for ancient woodland destroyed by development for housing, roadbuilding or similar.
Needless to say I was dismayed to hear of such comments which I believe are crass, betray a profound ignorance and I would suggest have made the Secretary of State open to ridicule. When you consider he is paid by all of us to safeguard the future of our countryside, it is inevitable that they will further erode any confidence in the current government’s environmental record.
The clue is in the title ‘ancient woodland’ – by definition something that is ancient cannot ever be adequately replaced by instant replanting. Ancient woodlands are not just collections of old trees, they contain an array of rare and specialist species that cannot be replaced in any suitable timescales by new plantations, which do not contain these species. To offset, should mean to provide these elsewhere. This is not what is being offered. What Mr Paterson is proposing is therefore simple habitat destruction.
The idea that artificial woodland can be recreated in even ‘a few hundred years’ is wishful thinking. The 400 year threshold for woods being considered ‘ancient’ is not because that is how long it takes to develop a characteristic ancient woodland flora but because woods for which we have evidence of their existence back to the 1600s are considered to have been naturally established as planting of woodland was not common before that time. Many ancient woodlands show evidence of having existed back to at least the early Middle Ages and it is possible that many have been continuously forested all the way back to the primaeval forest. It is also worth pointing out that in addition to the biodiversity aspect, the cultural and archaeological significance of ancient woodland would also be impossible to recreate by planting out a few hundred hectares with saplings somewhere ‘within a couple of hours travel by car’.
Our recent economic difficulties are well know and we do have a housing shortage in Britain. We do need new development to tackle that problem but there are still many thousands of acres of consented land that house builders are sitting on as land-banks waiting for the upturn. And there are many brown-field and indeed greenfield sites that would be suitable for development which do not endanger ancient woodland. There is therefore no logic to this proposal. If we have no room, to build except on ancient woods, how do we plan to fit 100 trees into our limited space from which we took one? Some habitats should be sacrosanct and ancient woodland, along with wetlands and other rare and declining habitats should at all times be protected.
It is worth saying that off-setting is very controversial and I am certainly not suggesting here that if ancient woodland is excluded from any biodiversity off-setting scheme then everything is ok. It is important to understand that the problems with biodiversity off-setting go beyond the ancient woodland issue, but this example does throw those problems into sharp relief.
Could I please ask you to write to the Secretary of State to ask him to explain further his proposal, what advice he received from his officials and what research his department undertook into the history and ecology of ancient woodland which lead to the frankly astonishing mistaken belief that artificial recent planting could in any way compensate for their loss? For example, is he aware of the painstaking research over many decades by well known writers on historical ecology such as Oliver Rackham and George Peterken? The latter are not hidden away in obscure journals but have been published in best selling books on the subject over the last forty years. Perhaps you might also ask him if he might consider withdrawing his remarks and what he plans to do following this debacle to restore public trust in him and his department’s ability to act as the government’s champion for our countryside? How will he now seek to ensure any development on rural land is managed sustainably and will not result in loss of unique irreplaceable habitat?
Thank you, and I look forward to your reply.
—