A letter published in the Daily Telegraph and signed by almost 100 dignitaries, including Dame Judi Dench, asks the Government to Save Our Forests.
Other backers include Lord Rees, the astronomer royal; Tony Juniper, special adviser to the Prince of Wales’s Rainforests Project; Annie Lennox, the pop singer; Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the explorer; authors Michael Frayn and Julian Barnes; Dr Rowan Williams; Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate; Dame Judi Dench, the Oscar-winning actress; and Bill Bryson, the author and president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
We have spent the last 10 years looking after our own little 17 acre wood, because after working as an ecologist I know how important woodland habitat is – expecially if it is managed to allow room for wildlife.
However, experience shows that even when you actively encourage people to visit your woodland, very few people are interested. (I have regularly been told that “my children don’t walk” and very many other very thin excuses not to go on a free 20 minute stroll round a circular award winning walk. (Shortlisted in Woods for Wales 2005 and Commended in Beautful Farms 2010.)
Therefore it is vitally important that all those with the enthusiasm to read this, work as hard as they can on this campaign. The ‘silent majority’ don’t care, and the business men who can afford to buy land on the proposed scale will not be able to afford to care. (Their shareholders will want a return.)
Best of luck!