For sale: UK forests?
A critical vote has been scheduled for Wednesday. If you are a UK voter and think this is a bad idea, you can sign a petition which already has some 330,000 names here and from here it is easy to send a message to your local MP.
The logic of the market is all too often that of King Midas' touch. Things may turn into gold, but they die in the process.
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A comment on this post by Richard Davis on Facebook that I thought was worth preserving:
"In one way this shows progress since Thatcherism - she would only recognise individual trees - at least the new tories can see the forest"
Like Richard's Thatcher comment. The Queensland Government recently privatised the management of Queensland's plantation timber through a 99 year lease. http://www.qld.gov.au/assetssale/businesses/fpq/index.shtml
Happened with remarkably little public debate since at the same time they were privatising a large slab of rail assets. However, I suspect it's a little different from the British version as there's a distinction here between plantation timbers and national parks which are still in public management.
An excellent article arguing against private ownership. And against state ownership too. Takes the discussion to a new level.
Monbiot's conclusion: "Like every privatisation and every nationalisation, this is a squandered opportunity. If the government believed its own rhetoric, the disposal of the forest estate would help to restore a genuine public ownership of the land, lost through centuries of dispossession and enclosure. Instead it looks like just another squalid little fire sale, liquidating our common treasury to release some emergency cash."
Sometimes, public campaigns make a difference.
Mongabay: A dangerous model for developing nations - an international perspective on the proposed sale.
Public repentance is a noble (and all too rare) thing.
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