Safeguarding the cultural heritage and archaeology contained within our woodlands.

Safeguarding the cultural heritage and archaeology contained within our woodlands.

The above topic seems, at present, to have been marginalised in the debate on the FC management of our ancient forests and woodland. The position in England is that we have possibly the highest concentration in the world of unresearched or under researched woodland sites. We have been actively involved with the FC for a number of years working on the archaeology contained within Sherwood Forest. We are sure commercial forestry would not see the preservation or conservation of heritage sites within their woodland as high priority. Also, to think that any level of local authority is capable of becoming involved with woodland management in the current financial climate is a mistake. Local authorities here in Nottinghamshire are slashing staff and services and are not looking for new areas of responsibility. Local authorities would probably like to give away their parks and gardens as well because they have already sacked the rangers that managed them. The Woodland Trust has been looking for people to lease woodlands as they are not able to resource all the extended responsibilities, funding has been cut from the Community Forests and small woodlands have been chopped up to create 2 and 3 acre woodland gardens just to promote sales. We support public involvement and social forestry but to expect the untrained and unsupported public to pick up the responsibilities of woodland management is unrealistic. We quickly need a fully funded mentor scheme to help new woodland owners and volunteers to gain confidence in their day to day decision as we will be overwhelmed by new volunteers wanting support and advice.

Have your say by visiting these sites:
The consultation will run for 12 weeks until 21st April 2011. This consultation is about the future ownership and management of the public forest estate in England – land managed by the Forestry Commission on behalf of the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. You can see the consultation document on the FC website www.forestry.gov.uk/england-pfeconsultation or www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/forests/index.htm. 
Or, you can request a hard copy by contacting them below.
How to respond You can either respond to this survey online or by completing a hard copy of the consultation and posting it back to them.
Online – visit our website at www.forestry.gov.uk/england-pfeconsultation and follow the link to the online consultation. Hard copy – download a copy of the full consultation document from our website, print off and complete the relevant section(s) and post it back to us.
Or Call  0845 3673787 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              0845 3673787      end_of_the_skype_highlighting to request a hard copy which you can complete and return -have any questions please contact 0845 3673787 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              0845 3673787      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or via publicconsultation@forestry.gsi.gov.uk