APPENDIX 20
Memorandum from the Woodland Trust
Thank you for prompting us to provide views
to the Environmental Audit Select Committee on the UK Sustainable
Development Strategy.
Our comments are focused directly on issues
relating to woodlands and forests referred to in section 8.59
and section 8.60.
ANCIENT WOODLAND
We welcome the unequivocal statement that the
Government aims to halt the trends of decline and fragmentation
in the area of ancient and semi-natural woodland. This has great
resonance with our Plan for Action, Keeping Woodland Alive,
launched last year. We note with great interest in particular
that the commitment to a review of measures to protect ancient
woodland orginally made in an England context in the 1998 England
Forestry Strategy appears to have been extended to the UK as a
whole. We would therefore draw the Environmental Audit Committee's
attention to this and suggest that similar explicit statements
must therefore be made in the Welsh and Scottish woodland and
forestry strategies currently in preparation in order to be consistent.
In a UK context, we would also draw attention
to the fact that there is currently no inventory of woodland in
Northern Ireland against which such trends can be measured and
urge the Northern Ireland Forest Service to support our proposed
bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to create such a document.
NEW WOODLAND
We would draw the Environmental Audit Committee's
attention to the issue of CAP reform and specifically the area
of the new Rural Development Regulation in relation to forestry.
Separate consultation on the forestry element of this Regulation
is only planned for England we understand so we are concerned
that forestry may be given an even lower profile in Scotland and
Wales which is something the Committee may wish to monitor.
INDICATORS
An obvious and easily measurable indicator of
sustainable management is the area of woodland in the UK certified
under FSC and/or the new UKWAS processes. We are surprised that
this has not been recognised in the section on indicators.
KEY ACTIONS
AND COMMITMENTS
Again the commitments are made at a UK level
not just for England which is welcome but perhaps not fully intended!
ENGLAND FORESTRY
FORUM
The Forestry Minister for England's willingness
to take the agenda forward through the England Forestry Forum
is very welcome and we look forward to constructive debate.
MILLENNIUM CHALLENGES
FOR GOVERNMENT
You may also be interested to see a document
which we launched at the Houses of Parliament in April which outlines
some key issues which we believe are crucial for government at
all levels to tackle over the coming five years in relation to
trees and woodland. I would be happy to talk to you further on
these if you feel it appropriate.
July 1999
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