The government insists that the big Forestry Commission sell-off will protect our national heritage. One woodland lover is not so sure?
On a spectre-grey, wintry morning this week, the car park at Cannop Colliery in the Forest of Dean was empty. On Saturdays the Cycle Centre is buzzing with visitors but I'd come on this occasion with my bicycle to savour the solace; to set "my mind adrift in a floating and rustling ark", as Louis MacNeice wrote. I'd come to think about trees.
The mountain bike trails snake across Sallowvallets Inclosure, through conifer plantations and small groves of deciduous wood. It's neither an ancient nor atmospheric part of the Forest, but for the �3 parking fee you can ride all day on a variety of superb routes, purpose-built by local volunteers in partnership with the Forestry Commission. Halfway round the Freeminer Trail, I stopped at the top of a series of tight switchbacks. I could hear a dim, distant dog bark and the faintest thrum of machinery: otherwise it was serene. Certainly there was no hint of the fierce storm that is brewing around the Forest of Dean.
"There's been a tremendous uproar about the government proposal to sell off Forestry Commission land," Fred Carpenter, owner of the Cannop Cycle Centre for 20 years, told me. "People round here like the Forestry Commission. They've done a good job promoting recreation but it's the threat of losing access to the forest which has so upset everyone The locals burnt a huge effigy of Big Ben a few weeks back."
The government has outlined a plan to sell off the 260,000 hectares of land that comprise the public forest estate in England (powers in Wales and Scotland are devolved), and which the Forestry Commission currently manages. This accounts for 18% of England's woodland. The Forestry Commission has been selling off land piecemeal for 30 years but clearly this would be the biggest redistribution of land in England since the second world war.
The government is proposing that English woodland be divided into four categories, ranging from "heritage" to "multi-purpose", "small timber" and "large commercial". In an attempt to allay fears of corporate raiders ravaging our timber and of fat cats locking gates and hoisting "Keep off my forest!" signs, the government is selling the proposal as part of the great, vaunted power shift away from Big Government and into local hands. A quarter of the woodland will be offered to community groups at commercial rates, and "heritage" woods such as the New Forest and Forest of Dean, will be managed by new or existing charities in the "national interest".
Writing in the Times on Thursday, the environment secretary Caroline Spelman said the government had no intention to "sell off heritage forests, such as the Forest of Dean or the New Forest, to whoever comes along waving the largest cheque book. Instead, we will be proposing that they remain protected, enhanced and accessible to the public in perpetuity."
Despite the assurances there are still sceptics. John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "Britain's woodlands? offer important habitats to much loved wildlife, as well as enjoyment and beauty to families up and down the country. It's no surprise that there has been an upswell of public concern at the prospect that our island's natural life might be auctioned off at a government-sponsored jumble sale. The government must now guarantee not only the complete right of access to all our forests but also the budget for their protection and restoration."
I'm a member of the Crucorney community woodland group. We're part of a small, nascent, not-for-profit energy group that seeks to raise awareness about sustainable living and reduce the carbon footprint of our community in the Welsh Marches. Our woodland group is small beer, but we believe it has purpose, and we enjoy it. The wood we're working in is halfway up a hillside on the Herefordshire-Monmouthshire border. On a clear day there are majestic views over the glacial-shaped valleys and cirques of the Black Mountains to the west, and down to the River Monnow in the east. More often, the wood is in cloud. Offa's Dyke footpath, which follows the ancient demarcation between England and Wales, cuts across the fields nearby: it's one of a web of paths that twist and weave across the countryside like a Celtic knot.
At the moment we're clearing and coppicing. Fallen timber is cut into lengths by chainsaw and then stacked in piles. We'll leave it out through spring and summer to "season": it should be ready to burn as firewood next winter. We're mainly coppicing clusters of hazel, known locally as "rids", that haven't been felled for 26 years and are probably a century old. They'll be ready again to provide heat in someone else's home around 2035. The thickest hazel boughs will be used as firewood; everything under 15cm or so in diameter is cut into lengths and placed in another pile. In spring we'll burn this hazel in our kiln, to make barbecue charcoal, which we'll bag and sell in the garage and at local campsites over the summer. The money we make will hopefully cover the ongoing costs of the group ? petrol for the chainsaws, new bow saws and insurance.
We have access to our wood because of the grace of Jo Binns, who farms 147 acres on the eastern flanks of the Black Mountains. Jo is also part of the woodland group. The simple deal we have struck is that Jo gets 50% of the firewood that we hump out of the wood and the group gets the other half, which will be divided up in proportion to the number of volunteer hours we've all put in.
We're lucky: Jo has been farming here for 27 years, and woodland management has always been part of his modus operandi. He's planted 19,000 oak, ash, hazel, birch and rowan trees. Another member, Wyndham Morgan, is a bible of old forestry lore, from felling to hedgelaying and horse logging to hurdle making. The rest of the group have been learning on the job. Ben and I recently completed chainsaw proficiency courses. Many of us have taken part in training days.
We're a small group. We have two-dozen members, half of whom are active. On a good day, when the ground is hard, the hoar frost is painted thick on the twigs and the lowlands below sparkle like salt pans in the sunshine, there might be six of us in the wood. On bad days, when the rain falls in sheets of grey that form a partition between the edge of the wood and the rest of the world, it's just Jo and I; sometimes just Jo.
Why, I occasionally wonder, do I turn up at all? I don't come for the firewood: I have my own two-acre wood three miles away, which I manage for firewood. I come to learn; because being in the woods is my Prozac; and because I respect the tradition of woodmanship on this island. The main reason I come, though, is my belief in community. I hope the woodland group will, over time, come to be another stitch that binds us together, like the pub, the pantomime and the potholes on the lanes.
I'm a foot soldier for David Cameron's "Big Society", though I believed in it long before the Conservative party. I ought, then, to be sharpening my chainsaw teeth with excitement at the idea of the Forestry Commission sell-off: reducing the power of the state while simultaneously bringing land under local ownership ? a double whammy.
I'm not, though. Our group has no money, and Caroline Spelman's assurance that we can apply for existing grants to raise the capital is hollow: such grants are incredibly hard to come by. More significantly, we don't want to own any woodland, not when we can informally lease it ? for free. Over 80% of the woodlands in England are already in private ownership. The Sylva Foundation estimates that a staggering 625,000 hectares of that woodland is currently unmanaged, and no more than 40% of the annual growth is harvested and utilised. Unmanaged woodland is everywhere. Once we've coppiced the hazel and taken out the firewood at Jo's farm, our group won't be short of offers of woodland to work in. All the community woodland groups we're in contact with are in the same position: they won't be purchasing either.
Who is going to buy the forest then? Commercial interest will be in the long leases (bound up with existing access rights, we're told) on the vast, unloved conifer plantations initially introduced by the Forestry Commission when it was set up in 1919 to provide a strategic reserve of timber. The commercial viability of a plantation is largely determined by the underlying land value and proximity to timber processing plants. A large coniferous forest in Northumberland near a timber yard will make a profit; five hectares of spruce in Cornwall won't.
John Clegg & Co, chartered surveyors, have specialised in woodland sales since the 1960s and acted for the Forestry Commission on its piecemeal sales since the early 1980s. John Clegg told me: "We have a mailing list of 10,000 looking to buy woodland. As well as individuals and businesses, it includes, off the top of my head, Woodland Trust, RSPB, a large number of county wildlife trusts, National Trust, Chiltern Society, Northern Trust, Grasslands Trust and more." Many of them may be window-shopping: the Woodland Trust, whose work is admirable, has stated this week it has no money.
The bulk of sales will be to individuals. Research published in 2009, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and sponsored by the Forestry Commission, suggests the reasons individuals want to own woodland are changing. Today, reasons include private enjoyment, firewood, wildlife conservation and the provision of public amenities. There is also the profit incentive: woodland property values have risen over 100% since 2002. "They're up 10-15% in value on last year. It's a strong market at the moment," John Clegg said. The tax exemptions on owning are yet another incentive: no income tax on timber sales; no capital gains tax on any increase in the value of the trees; and no inheritance tax (after two years of ownership). The majority of individuals will wish to buy broadleaf woodland ? and the critical issue will be access.
Broadleaf forests resonate strongly with us. Among birch and aspen (the first trees to colonise the country after the last ice age, 10,000 years ago), amid mighty oaks and cathedral-tall beeches, and surrounded by ash, hazel, holly and hornbeam, lime, wild cherry and sessile oak, we feel an ancestral need is being met. The phrase "recreational amenities" doesn't come close to reflecting the importance of broadleaf woodland to us.
When I lived in London I found it reassuring that, in two hours, I could be in the middle of the New Forest, large areas of which are part of the public forest estate. Today, the New Forest is roughly the same size and shape as the land William the Conqueror requisitioned more than 900 years ago, as a royal hunting ground. One of my favourite inclosures was Sloden Wood ? a place that sovereigns from the Conqueror to James I might recognise in the 21st century. With sunlight slanting through the oak and holly, and moist air hanging between the antique boughs, I had many moments of childish fantasy here, waiting for a Plantagenet knight to bound across a glade after a fallow deer, in the royal chase.
When I got back to the car park at Cannop Colliery, a dozen schoolkids were spilling out of a minibus: another handful to add to over 40 million visits to Forestry Commission sites each year. Who, I wondered, would own England's forests when those kids are old, and what would be left of them? Considering the threat, our woods have proved remarkably resilient over the centuries. This government is proposing to take us into new territory, though. Forestry sold into private ownership at Riggwood in the Lake District has already sparked anger among locals about the diminution of access rights.
The majority of people are opposed to the sell-off plan and several Liberal Democrat MPs are threatening to rebel over the issue. The government needs to tell us why they're really selling, who they're planning to sell to, what will be protected and how the multifarious public access rights we enjoy will bind the new owners. Until then ? hands off our forests.
Rob Penn is the author of It's All About the Bike: the Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels published by Particular Books
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/30/forest-sell-off-woodland-conservation
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