Category Archives: Forestry Commission
Berrier End Farm Tree Planting Fiasco – update
You will remember the fiasco I wrote about last Autumn, of Berrier End Farm in Cumbria. This was about 100 acres of valuable wildlife habitat, including large areas of peat bog and wildlife-rich grassland, which was damaged by tree-planting, that … Continue reading
10 years after the Forestry Commission wasn’t sold off, the bad old FC has returned
Cast your minds back, dear reader, Ten Years. I have deliberately capitalised these words so please don’t send me any grammatical correction comments. Ten years seems like an incomprehensibly long time ago, considering what we have been through in the … Continue reading
Forestry Commission ignores pleas and replants conifers after Wareham Heath fire
This press release was published this morning. Wildlife charities call for new vision after Forestry England replant conifers on precious heathland RSPB, Dorset Wildlife Trust, Plantlife, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation and Butterfly Conservation have today expressed concern after Forestry England’s (FE) decision to replant pine trees on precious heathland in Wareham Forest. In the current ecological emergency, they urge FE to begin working with them on a … Continue reading
Berrier Farm under Trees: 100 acres of peat bog, heath and wildlife-rich grassland destroyed by tree planting
England desperately needs more trees, we are constantly told. And it’s certainly true that tree cover here is lower than most other European countries. The data must he handled with care though, when … Continue reading
Forestry Commission plan tree planting on heathland after barbecue fire
The ground was bone dry and everything was flowering early. I was up at Poundbury (near Dorchester), checking on an area of wildflower meadow that I’d arranged to have sown. After the incessant downpours of the Autumn and Winter, the … Continue reading
‘Look but don’t pick’ – Wild Mushrooms and the Forestry Commission; Guest blog by Peter Marren
I am delighted to publish this guest post from Peter Marren, conservationist, author and fungi expert. The Forestry Commission has decided to ban the picking of wild fungi in the New Forest. A press release to that effect was … Continue reading
Save our Woods prevents FC sell-off (again). Now We need to save other valuable public land
Last Child in the Public Forest? (c) Miles King Save our Woods has done it again, with the help of 38 degrees. Yesterday evening, in the Lords, the Government agreed to reconsider whether the Public Forest Estate should be exempt … Continue reading
Planting Trees in the Uplands? There’s an idea….
I was so excited at the thought of OPatz going to live in the woods, foraging for mushrooms and curing badger hams , that I forgot to check what was actually said earlier this week, in relation to flooding and … Continue reading
Conservation needs Change
This a continuation of the series of blogs stimulated by the re-wilding and conservation debate at the Linnean Society on Wednesday. I looked at how people’s relationship with nature has evolved to the point now where we can more or … Continue reading
From Prosperity to Action in 25 years
In 1989 Margaret Thatcher’s Government published Roads for Prosperity. This White Paper set out plans for “The largest road building programme since the Romans” with plans for a 12 lane M25, an outer M25 from Harwich to the M4 near … Continue reading
a new nature blog 