Root and branch opposition to selling our green and pleasant land

The last time we met, Brian Walker was the picture of diplomacy.

Approaching retirement after 34 years working for the Forestry Commission, he happily talked about the successes he’d witnessed over nearly four decades and studiously avoided the elephant in the room.

It was just before Christmas and while rumours had been circulating for some time the Government had just confirmed 258,000 acres of Britain’s woodland were the latest asset to be added to the coalition’s fire sale. Brian, who still had a few weeks left in his post as wildlife officer for North Yorkshire, was unwilling to be drawn into the politics of the decision.

Today, no longer working in any official capacity for the Commission, he is finally able to say in public what he has long thought in private.

“The move to sell our forests is political bigotry, pure and simple,” says Brian, who joined the Commission as a park ranger in the 1970s. “This Government seems to be against the state ownership of anything and since they failed in their last attempt to sell the forests back in the 1990s, it’s always been viewed as unfinished business.

“The Commission is seen by some as an avant garde civil service. We don’t wear suits, we go out to work in forests and I think there is a complete lack of understanding about the vital work we do. Sadly as with many political decisions, these proposals have been drawn up by people who have no idea about how to manage the environment.”

A consultation is now underway on the future of 1,500 different areas of land in England, but before the outcome is known critics of the proposals have already mobilised a significant and increasingly vocal opposition.

A petition against the sell-off by the campaign group 38 Degrees, which has so far attracted almost 470,000 signatories, has been clear evidence of a public backlash and coalition MPs, many of whose constituencies include areas of forest and woodland, are coming under intense pressure to vote down the plans.

In an attempt to quieten the opposition, David Cameron has insisted he will “listen to all the arguments”, but many, including Brian, fear the proposals will be pushed through regardless.

“The Prime Minister keeps talking about his plans for a Big Society, but this would seem to go against that very philosophy,” he says. “As a wildlife officer part of my job was to bring together different people from senior scientists and ecologists to ornithologists and naturalists and allow their expert knowledge to be shared.

“These were people who all had a genuine interest in improving the environment and while their views and approaches differed, the Commission became pretty successful at pooling their knowledge and coming to a consensus on the best way forward. I just don’t understand the logic of breaking it up. Having a lot of individual landowners trying to safeguard their own priorities and quite possibly ignoring the bigger picture would seem to me to be a backward step. There are a small number of families in this country who already own large swathes of land, but simply owning an estate for hundreds of years doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to manage it.”

In Yorkshire, the Forestry Commission owns almost 60,000 acres of woodland, including Dalby and Cropton forests in the North York Moors National Park and the 1,200 acre Wharncliffe Wood near Sheffield. The Government has said it stands to raise £100m by selling off publicly-owned forests, but long-term the figures don’t appear to add up.

A report jointly compiled by the Department for Environment Farming and Rural Affairs and the Forestry Commission showed the cost of disposing of the land over the next two decades would come to around £679m while the financial benefits over the same period would only amount to £655m.

The report pointed out that once the forests are passed into private hands the Government would not only lose substantial income from the sale of timber and recreation licences, but would also have to pay millions of pounds in compensation and redundancies.

“I did some back of the fag packet calculations and worked out that at the moment it costs £5 a hectare for the Forestry Commission to look after the land,” says Brian. “For the private sector to achieve the same results the cost will be significantly more.

“The Government won’t just be able to sell this land and walk away. Whoever buys it will be able to apply for money and grants under the various stewardship schemes and, without having the same economies of scale as the Forestry Commission, I reckon it will cost about £60 a hectare.”

While the numbers on both sides will inevitably be disputed, one thing Brian insists is not up for debate is the potential cost to the environment.

“We could talk forever about the reasons for climate change, but the fact is it is happening,” he says. “One of the ways to minimise the effects is to create continuous natural environments which allow species to move easily if they are displaced from one particular habitat.

“Take the River Derwent, it’s a hugely important corridor and it has been difficult to get everyone to manage their bit with a softer touch. That’s not because they don’t want to, it’s just because of the sheer number of people involved. If forests are sold off there will be even more people to consult and the wheels will turn even more slowly. Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change, time is something we don’t have a lot of.”

The private sector is now eyeing up plots and calculating potential commercial revenue, but depending what the land is ultimately used for, opponents say it could have a major impact on the wildlife population.

“I don’t have a problem with making money from forests and I don’t have a problem with turning land over to shooting parties, but the truth is that if you start manipulating a forest for one particular aim other species will decline,” says Brian. “It’s well-known and well-documented that in areas where shooting takes place, the numbers of owls and sparrow hawks have gone into decline. If forests are sold off I have no doubt that British birds of prey will decrease significantly, but this isn’t just about wildlife. Our forests and woodlands are home to an awful lot of archaeology. I would often get calls from people when they discovered we were about to start work on a particular area letting me know that there was an important archaeological site nearby.

“Often these people became our eyes and ears and contributed a great deal to our knowledge of the land. Unfortunately, in the private sector these special interest groups are often seen as a hindrance.”

The plans for Britain’s forests were raised at last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, but while the debate has become increasingly heated, Number 10 has played down prospects of a major U-turn. However, Environment Secretary Caroline Spellman, who blamed “wild inaccurate” speculation for much of the opposition, yesterday insisted privatisation was “not a done deal” and while it’s unlikely the plans will be thrown out completely, they may yet be substantially watered down.

“I’m not entirely sure what the Government expected when they announced these plans, but it seems to me they won’t get away with it without a fight,” says Brian. “At the heart of all this lies the fact that our children’s children need a planet to live on and if we keep messing it about the world will be a much poorer place.

“Someone once said, ‘if it’s not broke, don’t fix it’, a mantra Mr Cameron would do well to adopt.”