Forest Protection Blog

Please save your beautiful forests

Actually they plan to sell all the public forests is England see http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/news/2010/10/29/forestry/ no mention of percentages. Please sign the petition and email your local Mp via http://www.38degrees.org.uk/

That is an utter disgrace! Trading reservoirs of biodiversity for stupid golf courses....

I'm disgusted.

Do they have any regard for the wildlife that will be killed or made homeless by ripping out the forests? What about the generations to come? No forests? We're in the process of climate change and need all the trees we can get! The life of the planet is more important than paying off the bloody deficit! Once the forests are gone, they're gone forever!

I live in Romania and we are facing the same problems with groups of interest destroying woodlands for industrial purpose. The main theft to the country is that no trees having been replanted for years. What will be left in a few years when all forests will be gone.

Restoring Our Ancient Roots
“Just doing the right thing”

Who are we to tell countries to save the rain forests when our ancestors cut down over 80% of all ancient forest and replaced it with farmland, cities and industrial areas?

Ancient forest also termed as old-growth forest, primary forest, ancient forest, virgin forest, primeval forest & frontier forest takes hundreds of years grow. Most were felled between the 17th Century and 1980.

The greatest legacy we can leave our grand children’s children is to restore these ancient forests across Europe, North America, Canada, United States, Central America, South America, Africa & Australasia.

There was a time when the human legacy was one of what we can build, what we can make & what we can invent. That time is over the only human legacy we can leave is what we can restore.

Why restore?
If we don’t restore after the rain forests are gone the great pine forests will be in great demand and value & it will only be a matter of time before they will suffer the same fate as the rain forest. Then there will be no great forests to save.
To protect the legacy we have to take responsibility for it, this can only be done in countries which have stable government, in countries who have laws which stand the test of time, this can only happen in developed countries who have already destroyed the ancient forests.

How do we restore?
Purchase land where ancient forests can be restored. Manage the start process of the restoration as we are only the starting generation we will never see the full result of our efforts. It is our responsibility to make sure the structures are in place and no one can destroy the legacy after we are gone.

The Legacy
We do this as we know it is the right thing to do. As a generation we only have two legacies’ we could leave, the first is to be the generation that consumed knowing we are taking our grand children’s children right to breath fresh air away from them forever or we are the generation that took responsibility to make sure our grand children’s children inherited the right to be able to always be able to breathe fresh air.

What do we need?
We need the greatest minds on forest management, the greatest legal minds, the greatest endorsements & a generation who wants to take responsibility for doing the right thing.
We aim to raise $400 million in our first year this will enable us to have a trail in every country and set up the forest management and legal security structure needed before we restore our lasting and most important human legacy in recorded history.

I'm just one person with little money, What can I do? The sale and ultimate destruction of our native forests means we will lose such a huge section of our biodiversity, and we lose our lungs, our heritage! We are so lucky to have the beautiful environment we live in, and due to "our" government messing up once again, they want to recoup by selling OUR woodland habitats! So, I only have the power of word of mouth, what can I do to help prevent the government destroying our spectacular forests??

This seems like a real shame. On one hand, economic recessions are good for the environment because they encourage people to conserve energy, but then governments go and do something like this. It seems very shortsighted to me.

This doesn't benefit anyone. We should protect our woodlands and natural landscapes because they are major providers of goods and services.

All over the world the last remaining old growth forests are being destroyed. It is a shame!Also in Sweden where less than 4% of the oldgrowth forest is protected. Leading scientists urge for 20% protection in an appeal to the government to maintain biological diversity.
Help us stop logging of old growth forests in Sweden. It is urgent. Support the appeal:
http://protecttheforest.se/upprop/en
Thank you

It is interesting to see the interpretation of the sale of forests as the their 'destruction'. Many woodlands fall into the category of extremely unmanaged and a non-usable resource for the communities. To put a positive spin on this situation, if the sales of these woodlands were caveated such that they were to be improved and managed as community resources we could end up with a net benefit?

Felling trees is still controlled under Forestry Commission licensing, planning decisions still lie with Local Planning Authorities who have to comply to planning policy regarding nature conservation (PPS9 in particular), plus all statutory protection still remains in place for various species, habitats, etc. Indeed, we may benefit from this mass sell off because this land can now be bought and managed by nature conservation groups and many professional conservationists I know are excited by this prospect. In addition, many woodlands to be sold off are in the form of Sitka Spruce plantation that serve absolutely zero benefit to any wildlife whatsover(and relatively little value as a carbon sink) and as such felling them wouldn't be such a bad thing. There are always two sides to a discussion (especially in Ecology!). I feel this isn't represented by this website, please publish my comments to provide a little balance!
Tom
Ecologist

This is an abolute disgrace, that such beautiful forest and woodland should be decimated for alleged progress. This is not progress it is vandelism on the part of the government. Once destroyed it will never be replaced. What happened to the idea of a millenium forest that was to be planted across Britain. There was only a 3 minute news segment on Central news one day highlighting the concerns for Cannock Chase, not only for the biodiversity of the Chase but also of the public access to these areas.