FC England is consulting on the future of its forests in an upland area, in a National Park – did you immediately think of Dartmoor? I bet you didn’t.
See here and here for interesting, conservation-oriented takes on the proposals and the links that will allow you to express a view – by 19 July. I will try to submit a view myself if time allows.
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Cheers Mark
A
What about the rather broader view raised by Ian Bateman and the NCC ? Isn’t this a perfect case wlhere moving the forest might be the right answer – from the high moor to around a town or city, onto land of currently low ecolgical value, where rhe economics show huge gains for people, health and quality of life. And in the proccess why not try to maintain timber production as a subsidiary aim ? There seems as great a willingness to write off timber production as there is reluctance to challenge even the smallest reduction in farm output – with the potential for a Brexit future this is a hump conservatin needs to get ove and fast.
The other key issue here – so starkly brought out by the HH crisis – is he near complete seperation between different environmental interests – especially landscape and nature conservation. As we in FC put together plans taking a wide range of interests into account with staff who had formal training in forestry, nature conservation, archaeology, landscape and recreation the narrow skill set – and willingness to ignore other interests – was often stark.