Anyone who cast a casual eye over last weekend's Observer may be wondering why the RSPB is being accused of environmental 'vandalism’.
The issue at stake is our drive to recreate threatened lowland heathland by not replanting commercial conifer plantations when they are harvested. This is something we are doing with a great deal of success at our Farnham Heath reserve in Surrey and it’s all helping towards the Government’s UK target for heathland recreation which the Forestry Commission is also signed up to. According to the Confederation of Forest Industries, however, this sort of conservation work is ‘absolutely crazy’.
It’s easy to get emotive when it comes to making large scale changes to the face of our countryside. It’s also easy to get emotive about the loss of heathland – a rugged and dramatic landscape which inspired Thomas Hardy’s Return of the Native - and heathland wildlife like the strange and beguiling nightjar, the secretive smooth snake and the colourful ladybird spider
But let’s not go there. Let’s just present some cold hard facts and you can make up your own mind.
Conifer plantations are planted with the specific intention of being harvested. They are not rare or endangered – nor is the wildlife you find in them. Heathland is rare – in fact lowland heathland is under greater threat of disappearing than rainforest. England has just one sixth of the heathland it had 100 years ago, while conifer woodland is a relatively recent addition to our landscape in southern England.
Threatened native species which rely on heathland include Dartford warblers, natterjack toads and grayling butterflies amongst others. However there are no threatened native species which rely on commercial conifer plantations for their survival.
The RSPB is an active campaigner on climate change and we recognise the importance of trees for capturing carbon. Which is why we are not advocating an overall UK-wide reduction in forest cover. We just want it to be in the right place – and former heathland is not the right place.
We are planting more woodland across the UK than we are removing. In fact we estimate that for every tree we remove, we plant two more. At our Geltsdale reserve in Cumbria we have planted 100,000 trees over 200 hectares whilst at the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire the RSPB and United Utilities have planted a similar area with new woodland.
The Government is just about to publish its thoughts on whether we should remove conifer plantations to help recreate heathland while we still can. If ministers base their decision on facts rather than blinkered emotion and climate change misinformation then we’re confident it will be the right one.