Woodland creation vital to Big Society

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Phillip Blond, director of think-tank ResPublica, has informed a report launch in Parliament of the important role that woodland creation has to play in the Big Society.

Guests from across the environmental protection and conservation sectors gathered in Portcullis House on Thursday to discuss the recommendations in the latest ResPublica report, 'Natural Policy Choices: Why trees and woods matter'.

Speaking at the session, Blond highlighted the need to treat woodland as a social, as well as environmental issue, and to involve all socio-economic groups in woodland creation.

He said: "Woodland isn't just a bourgeois artifice on the edge of urban environments. It is a way of beautifying communities."

"Given that beauty is one of the most consistent indicators of class and status in our country, just about the most effective thing that you can do to make your area more beautiful is to plant trees."

Blond also noted the interconnectivity of woodland creation with two of the most talked-about political movements of our time: Localism and the Big Society.

Noting that the Big Society may appear to be an abstract idea, but that there is nothing "more material than planting trees" in order to foster community action and create cleaner neighbourhoods, Blond continued:

"As part of the general move towards localism, why can't we create a system where communities can place a moratorium on the sale of woodland – or better still, wasteland that they want to make woodland?"

"This would preserve the local environment and could be paid for from locally set taxation."

Continuing Blond's theme of tree-planting serving as a key component of the Big Society, Sue Holden of the Woodland Trust emphasised the benefits of woodland creation not merely to the environment, but to society as a whole.

Holden, chief executive of the UK's leading conservation charity, a supporter of the report, said that the Trust cared about trees for their "intrinsic value", but also for the good of families and communities.

Holden said: "People know that trees make their lives more liveable, more bearable. Yes they are beautiful, but I believe people understand that they are more fundamental than that."

Noting that 85 per cent of the UK does not live within walking distance of a wood, Holden urged that immediate action be taken to increase the nation's woodland cover.

"We have to start taking action now; we must start planting trees now. It just can't wait," she said.

Also speaking at the event was Nick Boles, MP for Grantham and Stamford, whose constituency includes the headquarters of the Woodland Trust.

Boles agreed with the consensus opinion of improving access to woodland for lower socio-economic groups.

And the Conservative MP noted that the uproar over the government's proposed sale of the public forest estate was largely a "middle-class row", and that all sections of society needed to feel a sense of ownership over the nation's forestry.