When the Independent Forestry Panel was named The Ramblers stood out as being the only member that did not own land or indeed have an interest in owning land. To us here at SoW that meant we viewed them as possibly the only truly independent member on the panel.
We’ve been disappointed by the Forestry Panel’s lack of engagement with the wider public. Have you heard about their ‘Call for views’ anywhere else but from us, 38 Degrees, a local campaign or your chosen NGO? No.. I didn’t think so.
The Ramblers, yet again, stood out as being the only panel member focused on engaging as many of the forest ‘stakeholders’ as possible, particularly those that were not represented by the panel. Within weeks of being appointed to the Forestry Panel they set up the Forest Access Users Group, whose members include horse riders, mountain bikers, dog walkers, climbers, etc.
The other day we received an email from The Ramblers, asking if SoW would like to be the first to publish their response to the Forestry Panels ‘Call for Views’ to help highlight their desire for open dialogue with the wider public.
So, happy to support any panel members engagement with the public, we present it to you here:
The Ramblers Response to the Forestry Panels ‘Call for Views’
We hope the Forestry Panel remembers that it was created as a result of the extraordinary actions of the public ‘at large’, that it was this unwieldy wider public that stopped the Government from changing the law to enable them to sell off up to 100% of our Public Forest Estate and that the public did it with no obvious help from any of the subsequently appointed members of the Forestry Panel.
Now is your chance to engage with the wider public. We invite you to get in touch!
There’s only 25 days left to get your responses back to the panel!
