Lakes group announces protest rally this Sunday at Grizedale.
Plans to privatise publically-owned forests are on the media agenda this week as the Government launches a consulation which could see all Forestry Commission forests being sold off and one Lakes-based pressure group announcing a protest rally in Grizedale Forest on Sunday 30 January.
Grizedale Rally
The campaign to Save Lakeland's Forests – there are more than 30 of them in the area – was launched earlier this month and is calling on walkers, climbers and cyclist to demonstrate their opposition to the plans by turning up to the protest at 1pm on Sunday on the meadow next to the main car park at Grizedale Forest near Hawkshead.
The rally will hear speeches from the likes of Lord Clark of Windermere – a former chair of the Forestry Commission – and Eric Robson, the broadcaster and chair of Cumbria Tourism and the Wainwright Society. After the speeches, people will be invited to write comments on what the public forests mean to them, which will be taken to Parliament.
Eric Robson says: “Selling off the public forests in the Lake District would be a disaster for tourism in this beautiful corner of the country and for biodiversity. Whatever ministers try to tell us, they cannot guarantee the same level of public access to these forests if they are sold off or the same high standards of environmental protection. Trying to suggest otherwise is simply misleading.”
You can find more information at www.savelakelandsforests.org.uk.
Sign The Petition
Even if you can't make it up to Grizedale on Sunday, you can still register your opposition to forest privatisations by signing the petition at the 38 Degrees web site.
So far over 180,000 people have signed www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests#petition
Background
The 38 Degrees group says that more people visit woodlands than the seaside every year and they are concerned that the end of public ownership could make access to woodlands more difficult.
Some 18% of woodlands are state owned through the Forestry Commission, which works hard to develop relationships with recreational users – it is, for example, the 'leading provider of mountain bike facilities in Britain' – an the feat is that any sell-off could jeopardise these and similar projects.
It's not quite that straightforward, there's a good radio report from the BBC at news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9370000/9370424.stm where a speaker from the Woodlands Trust charity points out that it's not ownership which is the issue so much as management.
