Bishop of Liverpool on protecting England's forests
Chairing the Independent Panel on Forestry has taken me on a personal journey towards a realisation that, as a society, we have lost sight of the value of trees and woodlands.
The Panel's work over the last year has shown that our woodlands, managed sustainably, can offer solutions to some of the most pressing challenges facing society today.
Woodlands keep us healthy. They are places where people can get out in the fresh air and feel connected with nature, with history and with each other, away from the pressures of everyday life. They form a familiar yet special part of the English landscape. They create a stimulating outdoor classroom and playroom and allow children to connect with nature.
Woodlands also provide vital space for plants and wildlife, and help keep our air and water clean. By locking up carbon, trees can help slow the rate at which our climate is warming. They reduce the effects of a changing climate, by slowing and preventing floods, by providing shade in towns and in the countryside, and by providing corridors for wildlife.
Woodlands sustain livelihoods, support local businesses and contribute to the greening of our national economy. And of course trees provide us with wood; a familiar material that it is easy to take for granted. It is a valuable, versatile and renewable raw material, which locks up carbon for the lifetime of the products it is
turned into.
Put simply, the planting of trees and woods, their conservation and management are essential elements of our common life. A treeless landscape affects the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the diversity of our wildlife, as carbon dioxide thickens the blanket of gases around the Earth.
We lecture the world on deforestation and its impact on climate change and biodiversity, but we need to lead by example if our words are to be taken seriously by other nations. We should be unequivocal about how woodlands form some of the greatest assets of our natural capital.
We should be leading the world in showing how woodlands can help us slow the rate at which our climate is changing, and help us adapt to the changes that are already taking place.
We should be making the case for investment in our woodlands to tackle our public health crisis, and our ever-increasing disconnection from the natural world. And we should be realising the untapped potential of existing and new woodlands to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and other imported commodities. And at the heart of this, we should be focused on creating the right conditions for thriving businesses centred on woodlands and wood products.
To say that our woodlands are vital is not an exaggeration. The Panel welcomes this opportunity for the public to think again about the value of trees.
There is a huge opportunity for England's woodlands to drive a sustainable economic revival, to improve the health and well-being of the nation, and to provide better and more connected places for nature. We need a new culture of thinking and action around wood and woodlands, and a new way of valuing and managing the natural and social capital of our woodland resource, alongside the timber they contain.
As a Panel we have a vision of a more wooded landscape and more woods closer to where people live. There is a place for urban trees, wooded parklands and hedgerows as much as for conifer plantations and small scattered woodlands within a broader landscape. And getting a far greater number of woods, both new and existing ones, managed sustainably is essential.
Government, woodland owners, the forestry sector, non-Government
organisations, communities and the public all have a role to play. We want the publication of this report to enable the public debate to continue about the future of England's woods and forests, and the social, environmental and economic opportunities that they can deliver.
Our forests and woods are nature's playground for the adventurous, museum for the curious, hospital for the stressed, cathedral for the spiritual, and a livelihood for the entrepreneur. They are a microcosm of the cycle of life in which each and every part is dependent on the other ; forests and woods are the benefactor of all, purifying the air that we breathe and distilling the water of life.
In short, trees are for life.