That's a fair wedge of folk that want the Government to leave our forests alone.
If you've not signed up yet, click the pic above and get on with it - it's a doddle!
Archive for the 'Campaigns and Petitions' Category
Irony
Yep, believe it or not 2011 is the UN's International Year of Forests. Not that anybody's told Caroline Spelman and her bosses.
Have just a scan-read of the IYOF website and you'll find that "The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests". Their tagline is "Celebrating Forests for People".
Delve a little deeper and you'll find the 2010 Report of the Secretary-General on Preparations for Forests 2011, a Report of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It's a long document that I don't expect you'll go out of your way to read, so I've pulled a few choice tit-bits for you:
"The International Year of Forests, 2011 offers a unique opportunity to raise public awareness of the challenges facing many of the world’s forests and the people who depend on them. Great success stories and valuable lessons on how to promote sustainable forest management already exist. The Year provides a means of bringing those voices together and building momentum towards greater public participation in forest activities around the world."
"Forest spokespersons or messengers: The secretariat of the United Nations Forum on Forests is currently identifying individuals who can use their leadership or celebrity status to generate media attention and help to raise awareness and support for forests. These ambassadors-at-large are being sought from around the world and would be invited to travel to public events to promote the International Year of Forests, 2011 and mobilize action for forests."
There are some recommendations:
"Further encourage Member States to promote awareness of challenges and success stories related to implementing sustainable forest management at the national level."
"Promote observance of the Year not as an isolated event but as part of a continuing process of advocacy and partnership to foster greater awareness and action towards sustainable forest management at all levels."
There are even some dates for your diary:
The European Union Forest Directors-General meeting is expected to be held in Poland in November 2011
The European State Forest Association (EUSTAFOR) plans to organize its twelfth meeting in 2011
The Sixth Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe will be convened in Oslo from 14 to 16 June 2011. High on the agenda will be the elaboration of a strengthened policy framework for sustainable forest management throughout Europe.
All this does make me think that our Government is lost in the woods. Seeing how it's stance is so at odds with the IYOF credo, I'm beginning to think that even our membership of the UN might be considered superfluous by our leaders.
There's still time to take action to stop the madness here - sign the petition and badger your MP.
Wilde thing
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." (Oscar Wilde)
I'd suggest that our leaders have a tendency towards the cynical:
England's forests: Priced at £74.5 million. Value beyond measure, of long-term benefit to the population and the environment.
Ronaldo: Sold for £80 million (AND he gets £11 million a year for six years). Value debatable, short professional life-span, dives a lot.
We live in a mad world when the biggest cheat in soccer can be sold for more than all of our glorious forests.
You can't even argue that they can't be compared - after all, they're both wooden!
Go figure.
Then go sign the petition.
329691 signatories so far, many more are needed.
Attributions:
The map is a screengrab from the 38 Degrees Save our Forests website, the Ronaldo pic is by Jan S0L0 and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license, pic source here.
If you go down to the woods today…
... cherish the experience as best you can - it might well be one of the last times you get to do it.
In case you've missed the news, the Government is planning to sell all of England's national forests (see here).
There were times when the Tories were in favour of trees. Remember "Plant a Tree in '73"? As recently as last month they were promoting "The Big Tree Plant". Now it seems that they've done a U-turn as tight as the one in the photo above.
Thankfully there is great opposition to the sell-off. A YouGov poll found that 84% of the British public agree that woods and forests should be kept in public ownership for future generations (see here). Protests are planned. Battle-lines are being drawn up. Celebrities and leading figures are calling for the Government to reverse the decision to flog our logs and the land under them (see here).
There's an online petition too, it currently has 240,863 signatories. It needs more. Please sign up yourself and get others to do so. I'll cost you nothing more than a few minutes to help to save what should be retained and nurtured forever.
Posters etc. are available, click the following pic to get access to downloadable resources:
The Too Many Towers
'Who is Sarumather?' asked Piggin. 'Do you know anything about his history?'
'Sarumather is an MSP,' answered Treebeardedgit. 'More than that I cannot say. I do not know the history of MSPs. They appeared first after the Great Schisms; but if they came with the Schisms I never can tell. Sarumather was reckoned great among them, I believe. He gave up wandering about and minding the affairs of the voters, some time ago -- you would call it a very long time ago: and he settled down at Holyrood, or Pàrlamaid na h-Alba as the Men of Alba call it. He was very quiet to begin with, but his fame began to grow. He was chosen to be Shadow Enterprise and Economy Wizard, they say; but that did not turn out too well. I wonder now if even then Sarumather was not turning to evil ways. But at any rate he used to give no trouble to his neighbours. They used to talk to him. There was a time when he was always walking about the constituency. He was polite in those days, always asking leave ... and always eager to listen. Folk told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid them in like kind. They cannot remember that he ever told them anything. And he got more and more like that; his face... became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.
'I think that I now understand what he is up to. He is now the Wizard for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism. He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment. And now it is clear that he is irresponsible. He has taken up with foul folk, with the RES... Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these renewable energy developers are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the natural landscape; but Sarumather's RES can endure it, even while they pillage it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Eejuts and Men? That would be a black evil!'
Treebeardedgit rumbled for a moment, as if he were pronouncing some deep, subterranean Anglo-Saxon malediction. 'Some time ago I began to wonder how the RES dared to pass through the countryside so freely,' he went on. 'Only lately did I guess that Sarumather was to blame, and that long ago he had been spying out all the ways, and discovering the secrets. He and his foul folk are making havoc now...
With apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien and to fellow LOTR fans everywhere.
Original text sourced from here.
Reason here.
Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit
Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit.
The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood. When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet.
The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond.
But none of them owns the landscape.
There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.
Think about that.
Then think about supporting Alan Sloman's "AWake4TheWild" campaign.
What have you got to lose?
A lot more than you'd think.
