SUBMISSION TO THE INDEPENDENT PANEL ON FORESTRY
BY HUGH BAYLEY, MP FOR YORK CENTRAL
20 July 2011
England’s public forests and woodlands are part of our national heritage and should be protected and preserved, enhanced and improved, not sold. Forestry policy should not be dictated by short-term financial considerations but should serve the long-term interests of the nation. The Forestry Commission was created after the First World War to reverse the long term trend of loss of forested land. Almost a century later, it still stewards our public forests on behalf of all of us. There will occasionally be a need for the Forestry Commission to sell small tracts of land, but when it does so it should always acquire other land for forest use, particularly in areas close to centres of population. The Government should not be able to sell off these national assets when people in the vicinity do not want this to happen. I believe that public forests should remain public and year by year, more of our woodlands should be in public ownership.
Arguments for a public forest estate
The public forest estate costs each of us only 30p a year to maintain but generates a wide range of non-market benefits that must be protected:
1) Public forests are a vital recreational resource, receiving over 40 million visits each year. Forests result in improved air quality and provide other physical health benefits, as people walk, cycle and ride through them. There are also mental health benefits derived from exercise and leisure. I am particularly supportive of expanding woodland near urban areas. The Forestry Commission has delivered a significant amount of new green space around our cities and regeneration areas. Everyone should be within walking distance of woodland, but according to the Woodland Trust, only 64.8% have access to a wood of at least 20ha within 4km. With unemployment currently at 7.7% of the British workforce, people in England should be able to enjoy recreational activities in their public forests, not have these important leisure benefits taken away from them.
2) The Forestry Commission grants higher levels of public access than the legal minimum. The Forestry Commission manages over 250,000 hectares of land in England, including 21,800 hectares in Yorkshire and the Humber. This is only 18% of all woodland in England, but 44% of the total amount that is accessible to the public. Privately owned land simply does not offer the same access as Forestry Commission land. All too often, warning signs against trespass are erected on land that has been sold to private owners. Even if rights of way are built in as conditions of sales, there would almost certainly be a loss in quality of access. New owners would have no incentive to invest in car parks, for example. If public forests are sold, there will be a significant reduction in leisure benefits. Conversely, if the public forest estate is expanded, these leisure benefits will be increased.
3) The public forest estate contributes to climate change mitigation through carbon dioxide sequestration and substitution. The Forestry Commission has initiated a pilot project in Pickering, near York, to plant trees to reduce flood risks by creating a carbon sink and retaining water. Privatisation of the forests will make this kind of initiative more difficult as there will be few incentives for private landowners to invest in these schemes. England is one of the least wooded countries in Europe. The 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment states that England has woodland cover of only 9%, which is well below the EU average of 37%. The Government aims to plant 1 million trees by the end of this Parliament, so they accept the need for more woodland. Woodland expansion would help the government to achieve its objectives for reducing carbon emissions and should be achieved by expanding the public forest estate. In the future, the public forest estate could play an important role in developing carbon markets and generating renewable energy sources. This is not factored into the sale price for land and the potential benefits could be lost if land is taken over by private landowners who do not adequately manage the competing objectives of the land they purchase.
4) The excellent wildlife found in public forests is a direct result of Forestry Commission management, and the Forestry Commission carries out important work restoring damaged ancient woodland. According to Defra, the Forestry Commission spent £4,787,026 on biodiversity in 2009-2010. Good forestry practice, for example thinning woodland and planting new trees, is carried out regardless of market conditions. After the Government decided to suspend all forest sales, I organised a celebration and ramble through Dalby Forest. Over 100 people; including ramblers, orienteers, cyclists, horse riders and dog-walkers attended and were shown examples of good forestry management by Forestry Commission staff, who did this in their own time without pay, simply because of their love of their work. The Government’s recent Natural Environment White Paper contains the objective of “no net loss of biodiversity”. I do not believe this would be achieved if parts of the public forest estate were sold, as profit-maximizing private landowners do not have the same incentives to protect threatened or endangered species. If the government is serious about protecting and enhancing biodiversity, it should expand the public forest estate, to steward high standards and show the rest of those who manage forests what a well-managed forest can achieve. As the panel’s remit extends beyond the public forest estate to include the future of all England’s forests, I hope it will consider the point that a larger public forest estate would further promote good forestry practice more widely, which would in turn improve our natural environment.
5) The Forestry Commission does great work on education. Around 170,000 people each year participate in education and learning activities across the public forest estate in England. This would not continue under private ownership. Dalby Forest has the Forestry Commission’s only visitor centre in the Yorkshire and the Humber region and it is estimated that over 223,000 visits were made to this site in 2009-10. However, Dalby Forest could still be sold, which would be a terrible shame for my constituents and people from around the country who visit each year.
6) Unlike private land, Forestry commission land tends to be managed for multiple objectives, as outlined above. It would be harder to sustainably and efficiently meet multiple objectives if the estate was divided amongst a number of different owners. The public forest estate provides a significant proportion of all the goods and services from England’s woods and forests and therefore brings economic benefits. Products and services are sold from commercially profitable parts of the estate, to offset the costs of managing the whole estate. The government should retain ownership of at least some of England’s timber supply, as it generates income for the state. If profitable parts of the estate were sold, there would be an initial inflow but the Government would lose out on an important source of long-term income and the ability to subsidise the parts of the estate that generate major public benefits but are not commercially profitable. The real cost of maintaining heritage forests, for example, may increase as the Government would have to spend more on maintaining these woodlands. In addition, owners of former Forestry Commission land may be eligible for Government subsidies to manage the land, which might lead to an increase in Government spending on these woodlands in contrast to continued public ownership. On the other hand, new EU laws requiring timber suppliers to prove their products have been harvested legally before selling them within the European Union may result in increased timber prices within the EU. This could make the timber-producing part of the public forest estate more profitable and more of an economic asset to government.
7) I accept that the Forestry Commission buys and sells small amounts of land all the time, often by selling other land with mature trees that is of low public benefit. This is acceptable, especially if the proceeds from mature land that is sold are used to buy new land near urban areas. However, it is my view that selling public assets to private owners should not be seen as an end in itself and that the overall government policy should be to end up with more, rather than less, publicly owned forest each year. The Economics for the Environment Consultancy estimated last year that the public benefits of the public forest estate are worth around £600 million per year. The social value of the land far outweighs the market value, i.e. there are positive externalities. Forestry Commission land is different and should be protected, because Forestry Commission foresters guarantee standards that are not available universally in privately owned forests. If the allocation of forestry land was left to free market forces, public access, biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation would all be sub-optimal because it is not in the profit-maximising private land-owner’s interest to meet the costs of protecting these important public benefits. The Government therefore must intervene in the market and fund the management of this land, as it does through the Forestry Commission, so that these public benefits are not reduced. By expanding the public forest estate, these benefits can be increased.
Forestry Commission England carried out a major review of the public forest estate, published in December 2009. The majority of respondents called for the public forest estate to be expanded, because they felt that it was the best model to meet government objectives and its expansion would increase the benefits derived. The National Ecosystem Assessment highlights the significant economic and social costs of depleting our natural capital and the economic benefits of preserving it. The government has stated its objectives to ensure that England’s woodlands, forests and trees, and the open habitats within them are managed and expanded to enhance the environment and biodiversity, combat climate change and support economic growth. The Government has also stated its intention to encourage more tree planting, increase woodland area and promote more sustainable woodland management. This could best be achieved under the auspices of the Forestry Commission. If the coalition Government really does intend to become “the greenest government ever”, then it should protect our natural capital by expanding the public forest estate, rather than selling it off. A green government of any political persuasion should support this argument.
Undermining the Government’s green objectives is the fact that the Forestry Commission is being forced to cut its staff by a quarter. 240 job losses were announced in May, meaning fewer frontline staff and the closure of a number of local offices, including Clifton Moor and Wheldrake in York. The ability of the Forestry Commission to effectively manage the forests and deliver better woodland access and biodiversity is being undermined by these cuts. In order to improve forest maintenance in our public forests, the Government should not be cutting the Forestry Commission’s budget but should be committed towards properly funding the management of our forests. Effective forestry management requires skilled workers and will be harder to achieve with fewer foresters and a dwindling budget available for maintenance and enhancement of the public forest estate. The Forestry Commission needs to be in a better position to manage existing public forest land, some of which is in need of restoration, and regulate the management of other woodland in England.
I understand that increasing the public forest estate may not be realistic under current funding arrangements, so the Government should accept that forestry is not an area where budget cuts should be made because of other social and environmental objectives that must be considered. Selling 15% of publicly owned forest land (the maximum allowed without a change in the law) would only raise around £100 million. This is a drop in the ocean of total government debt, and would result in a major loss of social and environmental benefits promoted by the public forest estate.
Possible reform to the Forestry Commission
While I favour continued public ownership and expansion of the public forest estate, I am not against some reforms to the way in which it is managed. The previous Labour Government accepted the need for reform to reduce the cost to government and ensure a sustainable future but not at the expense of selling off large parts of the estate. My Labour colleagues and I would like to see more innovative management of the forestry estate, with more diverse income stream development around leisure businesses, renewable energy and new partnership arrangements. The Coalition Government’s initial plans contained a number of potential models for new management or ownership of the public forest estate, none of which were without their problems. For example, if some ancient forests were to become charitable trusts, there would have to be guarantees about what funding they would receive or what would happen if something went wrong. The consultation suggested that some heritage woodlands could become charitable trusts but they would need to fundraise for their running costs. This would not provide an adequate basis for biodiversity protection or effective forestry management. The government also said it would give local communities the right to purchase some areas of woodland, but this would be at open market value. It would take years to raise the money required to buy land. Since July 2010, 2,037 hectares of Forestry Commission land has been placed on the market, with 1,631 hectares being sold to private buyers and 114 hectares to public bodies. There have been no sales to community or charitable bodies in this period.
I accept that there could be a case for greater local management of some forests, but communities generally do not have the resources to buy land. Community forests are quite widespread in Scandinavia, Finland and France, where around 20% of total forest land is community forest land. In Scotland, the National Forest Land Scheme allows communities to take over state forests. Forest ownership could be devolved to communities but the Forestry Commission should retain ownership and could allocate funds, perhaps in the form of land management grants. Increased public involvement in maintaining our woodlands would fit in with the Government’s “Big Society” agenda but the Government would need to ensure that funding is guaranteed, so that public benefits are protected. Encouraging people to appreciate woods and trees will also be beneficial, because of the health and education benefits. The government could similarly fund wildlife charities or organisations to take over some environmentally important land. The Wildlife Trusts currently manage more than 16,000ha of woodland in England. However, more complex forests managed on multiple-use principles should still be run by the Forestry Commission, because of its good management record in these forests.
Conclusion
There may be some scope for alternative management models for parcels of land within the public forest estate and I look forward to reading what the panel says about this in its final report. However, I wish to reiterate the principle that we need a public forest to steward high standards of biodiversity and public access on behalf of the public, who pay for the forests through taxation and want to be able to continue to enjoy them. Therefore, while small bits of land may be sold to finance the pursuit of other Forestry Commission objectives to maximise public benefits, the overall policy should be to increase the public forest estate year on year. This is the only way to protect existing public benefits and increase them further. The ability to enjoy our public forests must be maintained for generations to come. Over half a million people signed the online petition against the sale of Forestry Commission land. I am sure the panel is aware of the strength of opposition to forest privatisation. I have read reports that suggest that the panel could recommend enlarging the amount of woodland. I hope that this will be the case for the reasons I have outlined. The Government should drop its idea to sell public forestry land and instead accept that the public forest estate must be protected and expanded.
