 | This article needs to be updated.(December 2019) |
Since 2017, the Woodland Trust has led 70 United Kingdom organizations in the call for a Charter for Trees, Woods and People.
| This article needs to be updated.(December 2019) |
Since 2017, the Woodland Trust has led 70 United Kingdom organizations in the call for a Charter for Trees, Woods and People.
The Charter of the Forest was first signed on 6 November 1217 as a sister charter to the Magna Carta from which it had evolved. Some minor changes were made to it, before it was reissued in 1225. [1] It was then joined with Magna Carta in the Confirmation of Charters in 1297. A Charter of the Forest was signed by Henry III to set down rights for people to access the sustainable benefits of the woods, trees and grazing lands of the Royal Forests in England. [2] It provides a window to a period of history when trees and woods were integral to everyday life for firewood, building material and food.
In October 2010, the government introduced the Public Bodies Bill to the House of Lords, [3] which would have enabled the Secretary of State to sell or lease public forests in England. The Woodland Trust believed that the public outcry that stopped those plans revealed the connection people feel to the woods and trees of the UK. [4]
The Independent Panel on Forestry wrote in its 2011 Report: [5]
A Charter should be created for the English Public Forest Estate, to be renewed every ten years. The Charter should specify the public benefit mission and statutory duties.
The call to create a Charter for Trees, Woods and People was first made in January 2016. [6] The Charter for Trees, Woods and People was launched on 6 November 2017 [7] on the 800th anniversary of the Charter of the Forest. The Tree Charter address different issues to the historic charter because society and priorities have changed so much. However, there has been no comparable statement of rights and responsibilities in the intervening 800 years. [8] The Tree Charter aims to bring this discussion of the importance of woods and trees to people back to the forefront of public consciousness.
The charter aims to join the dots between all the different areas of society in which trees give benefits so that it can recognize and protect the true value of trees to society. Organizations involved are from a variety of industries. This includes commercial forestry, health, wildlife conservation and many more.
To create this Tree Charter, thousands of tree ‘stories’ were collected from people across the UK about what trees and woods mean to them. A tree story is any expression of what trees and woods mean to people. They can be a sentence or longer phrase, a photo, audio clip or video. The tree stories were collected until the end of February 2017. [9]
These tree stories collected from the UK public, along with specific consultations with forestry [10] and sector professionals, will form the basis for the partner organizations to write the content of the final Tree Charter. The new Tree Charter document will not be legally binding, but more a set of guiding principles, to which politicians, organizations, community groups and individuals can be held to account.
The 10 Tree Charter Principles were announced on 27 March 2017. From this moment onwards, the public is being asked to sign to show support for the Tree Charter.
The Tree Charter will be a document which can be used to hold politicians, community groups and organizations to account, backed up by the body of evidence of over 60,000 public stories. It will be the basis each year of a joint statement from the partner organizations, which will demonstrate whether or not the aims of the Charter have been achieved. [11]
Partner organizations involved in creating the Tree Charter: [12]
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a charitable organisation registered in England and Wales and in Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment through public awareness campaigns, petitions and through the operation of nature reserves throughout the United Kingdom.
This page gives an overview of the complex structure of environmental and cultural conservation in the United Kingdom.
The Woodland Trust is the largest woodland conservation charity in the United Kingdom and is concerned with the creation, protection, and restoration of native woodland heritage. It has planted over 50 million trees since 1972.
In the United Kingdom, ancient woodland is that which has existed continuously since 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 1600 is likely to have developed naturally.
The Caledonian Forest is the ancient (old-growth) temperate forest of Scotland. The forest today is a reduced-extent version of the pre-human-settlement forest, existing in several dozen remnant areas.
Chris Baines is an English naturalist, one of the UK's leading independent environmentalists. He is a horticulturalist, landscape architect, naturalist, television presenter and author.
Wildlife management is the management process influencing interactions among and between wildlife, its habitats and people to achieve predefined impacts. It attempts to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people using the best available science. Wildlife management can include wildlife conservation, gamekeeping and pest control. Wildlife management draws on disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry, biology, ecology, climatology and geography to gain the best results.
Natural history of Scotland concerns the flora, fauna and mycota of Scotland.
Abernethy Forest is a remnant of the Caledonian Forest in Strathspey, in the Highland council area of Scotland. It lies within the Cairngorms National Park, close to the villages of Nethy Bridge, Boat of Garten, and Aviemore. The forest is an RSPB reserve, close to Loch Garten Osprey Centre, which is also owned by the RSPB. It is popular with walkers, as there are various trails throughout the reserve. The forest forms part of the wider Abernethy National Nature Reserve.
The Charter of the Forest of 1217 is a charter that re-established for free men rights of access to the royal forest that had been eroded by King William the Conqueror and his heirs. Many of its provisions were in force for centuries afterwards. It was originally sealed in England by the young King Henry III, acting under the regency of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.
The fauna of Scotland is generally typical of the northwest European part of the Palearctic realm, although several of the country's larger mammals were hunted to extinction in historic times and human activity has also led to various species of wildlife being introduced. Scotland's diverse temperate environments support 62 species of wild mammals, including a population of wild cats, important numbers of grey and harbour seals and the most northerly colony of bottlenose dolphins in the world.
Bedford Purlieus is a 211-hectare (520-acre) ancient woodland in Cambridgeshire, in the United Kingdom. It is a national nature reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest owned and managed by the Forestry Commission. In Thornhaugh civil parish, 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Stamford and 14 km (8.7 mi) west of Peterborough, the wood is within the Peterborough unitary authority area of Cambridgeshire, and borders Northamptonshire. In Roman times it was an iron smelting centre, during the medieval period it was in the Royal Forest of Rockingham, and later it became part of the estates of the Duke of Bedford. Bedford Purlieus appears to have been continuously wooded at least from Roman times, and probably since the ice receded. The woodland may have the richest range of vascular plants of any English lowland wood. It acquired particular significance in the 1970s as an early subject for the historical approach to ecology and woodland management.
Nagshead is a woodland reserve, located on the western edge of Parkend, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and is home to RSPB Nagshead. The site is listed in the 'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review'.
Dunwich Forest is an area of forest and lowland heath around 1 mile (1.6 km) north-west of the village of Dunwich in the English county of Suffolk. The forest covers an area of approximately 9 square kilometres and was originally planted by the Forestry Commission. The forest is within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is in the area known as the Suffolk Sandlings. South of the reserve is the National Trust property of Dunwich Heath, one of the largest remaining areas of lowland heath on the Suffolk coast, and the RSPB reserve at Minsmere. To the north and east of the forest are Dingle Marshes, part of the Suffolk Coast National Nature Reserve.
Basil Matthew Stuart Dunlop is a retired Chartered Forester, FICFor and author who lives in the Cairngorms National Park.
Ted Green MBE is a British academic, scientist, campaigner and arboriculturist. He has been working in a career bridging forestry and conservation for over 50 years, founding the Ancient Tree Forum in 1993. He is described as "Britain's foremost ancient tree expert". He won the Royal Forestry Society's (RFS) Gold Medal for Distinguished Services to Forestry in 2017.
This article gives an overview of the structure of environmental and cultural conservation in Scotland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom.
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