Save Our Forests! - SUCCESS (Jim Hume)

Save Our Forests! - SUCCESS

Update: Campaign Won!

Jim Hume's campaign comes in light of the SNP's attempts to effectively sell off publicly owned Forestry Commission forests to private timberland investment companies. The proposal was hidden deep within the Climate Change Bill and would have seen the most commercially viable forests being leased to private investment companies for up to 75 years. Unsurprisingly when this privatisation by the back door approach was debated the SNP were backed by the Tories, the SNP's unlikely but ever loyal bedfellows.

The 25% of forests targeted for this leasing option was the most commercially viable proportion of Scotland's forestry estate and equated to about 40% of production for the Forestry Commission. Removing this from public ownership would have significantly diminished essential Forestry Commission income for investment in maintaining Scottish forests and projects including the 7stanes network and for creating new leisure access initiatives such as mountain biking, walking, orienteering and other community woodland initiatives elsewhere. A further worry was that Forestry Commission jobs were undoubtedly under threat, and local timber companies dependent upon cutting rights granted to them by the Forestry Commission faced an uncertain future if those cutting rights had been taken away or if wood prices were set higher than is affordable for local companies.

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