Think of the Trees!

OK, listen up! Especially you mountain bikers etc.

Go to these sites and sign the petitions.

http://saveenglandsforests.org
and
http://tinyurl.com/68skghh

Just don't fucking argue, just do it, OK?

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.

 

Well, looking around me: there is Forestry Commission monoculture and
privately owned coppiced managed stock. I know which *I* prefer.

 

I'm broadleaved in agreement, in that I can't see a private owner
making Kielder into a holiday village, fenced off with barbeldy wire.
Most of the cash-crop forestation would continue as is, and as most
public-owned forest stock has access enshrined under CROW nobody would
notice much difference. Places like Symonds Yat and the New Forest,
OTOH, may change and not for the better.

 

This. There is a lot of knee-jerk reaction on this issue which I thought
I should highlight.

 

there's loads of coal under the Forest of Dean. Not very far under and open
cast would be the most efficient means of extraction. Private enterprise
has been pushing to make a big hole near Cinderford. So far the schemes
have all been turned down so capitalism has failed to achieve what the
residents of Cinderford manage with aplomb.

 

Tis true, Cinderford is the arsehole of the Forest, despite being almost the
highest point.

 

**** right off. The Forestry Commission are cunts, & the Rambliars
Association & the BHS were both instrumental in getting my access as a
trailrider to both forests & the countryside in general severely
restricted. So they're cunts too, & anything that pisses them off &
affects their hobbies in the same way they affected mine gets my vote.

 

Pastor Niemuller rode a trailie.

 

And you think a privately owned forest will improve your access?

 

Ah. It's all karma, innit.

 

I think there's more of a chance than there is now, but that's not the
point. Funnily enough the forest with the most relaxed access/lack of
rules that I know of is Savernake, which is already privately owned.

The other forest near me is Westonbirt, which is apparently on the 'for
sale' list. That has no public access at all without paying a large
fee. The final one I use occasionally is the Chilterns. You can't ride
a horse there without buying a permit, & even then you're only allowed
to walk (not trot or canter) & the areas you can use & times you can
use them are very restricted.

The premise of these campaigns that 'the public can currently use
forests but won't be able to if they're sold' is nothing but
scaremongering.

 

I had to oogle a bit to make sense of your statement, I must confess.
Whilst it seems that the residents may well have been doing a bit to
it, they're also mounting a pretty determined campaign to prevent
anybody else getting in on the act.

 

I was wondering what would happen to those forests with cycle hire
places and waymarked trails like Cannock Chase. They also have open air
music events there, so perhaps they'll sell it as a profit making
opportunity.


--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

I think that's a valid way of looking at it. However, for casual use -
going for a wlk in the trees of a Sunday afternoon - the FC forests
are, IME, pretty much open access. This may change ... but a locked
gate and a bit of wire isn't going to stop me and the dog strolling.

What concerns my treehugging side is the irrepairable damage that could
be caused to "ancient" woodlands, those currently of mixed broadleaved
species - like the FoD and New Forest. If the deciduous trees are
felled and logged, then replaced a la FC with rows of cash crop
conifers, that's not just Sunday strolling off the cards, it is a whole
ecosystem irrecoverably destroyed. There's a whole load of gear that
thrives in the dappled shade of a deciduous forest that won't even look
at repopulating the silent gloom within the span of the needliferous
lot.

 

Indeed. Biodiversity innit. I do my bit by having some conifers (with a
view to the log burner) and a mixture of Birch, Oak, Sallow, some kind
of Acer and loads of Hazel , but that's in France.

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Aprilia Shiver Yamaha WR250Z/Supermoto "Old Gimmer's Hillclimber" |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Rights of way will remain regardless so it's unlikely you'd have to.

AIUI the sale contracts won't allow that, & the FC will be making
regular inspections after the sales to ensure nothing naughty's going
on. In fact there's a good chance at least some of the forests will go
to very green philanthropists who will make them far more ecologically
useful than they are now.

 

That's a term I've become familiar with in later life. I clearly
recall the startling difference between the woods I grew up looning
around in and the unutterably bleak conifer plantations that were the
setting for stage rallies. Never mind diversity - there's no life at
all in plantations - nothing can grow in the darkness beneath them,
which is highly acidic due to the leachate from the needles, birds
cant/won't/don't nest in the branches and because there's FA to eat
there's no small mammals in residence, bar the odd grey squirrel.

Monoculture, that's the term. Foul, that's the experience - you can't
even walk through them, unless you stick to the FC roads (for which
they stiff the Motor Clubs an incredible amount per car per mile for
rallying) as the furrows they use for planting never level out and even
the firebreaks are ankle-breaking boggyashell hard going. Grim.

You're going the right way (for future generations, at least) as all
bar the oak is fast growing, in that list. Self replenishing, even.

 

Whilst I take your point (a la the Catman/Champ handbagfest) it would
be far from the first time that I've come across ROW that have been
ploughed, gated, fenced across or otherwise made more than difficult or
less than obvious that they're a ROW. Notoriously easy to close off,
with a lengthy process to re-open.

Reading around the FOD action, I understand that condition to be
binding only on the /original purchaser/ which means that the use of a
front company which freely allows a subsequent sale will result in a
condition-free open contract. Exit the remnant FC, tail between legs.

There is that, and TBH, the appeal of logging deciduous trees and
replanting with conifers would be neccessarily limited to companies
with a lot of cash and stability guaranteed to await a return in 20
years - although if you look at vast tracts of the Scottish Highlands,
the UK isn't exactly short of such concerns.

 

Prawn spoke:

Well, looking around me there is a local forest which up until a few
years ago was privately owned and it was an impenetrable mess, tracks
were rutted quagmires, and collapsing rusting barbledy wire fencing all
over the place.

Now it is being managed and is a very pleasant place.

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.

 

SIRPip spoke:

There was something on the tellybox the other day about a woods in
Cumbria which had been sold off by Thatchers lot the last time the tories
tried this.

The woods have now grown a fence around it, and the car park has
padlocked gates.

What is it about Tories that they have to sell *everything*?

--
Rob_P
UKRM(at)indqualtec.co.uk
uppercase(d) BBIWYMC#1 BOG#11? MRO#31 IBCDBBB#1(kotl)
FJ1200, CCM130 Benelli Cabriolet (gone)
Looks like Rab C Nesbit.