| Wildwood Director Peter Smith said: “We must act now to save these woods from being snapped up by greedy developers, which would mean the intricate diversity of wildlife habitats could be lost forever.” “Ancient woodland is just like the rainforest and has some of the richest wildlife habitat in the UK. Certain species are only ever found in ancient woods and are slow to spread, they do not colonise new woodland easily and younger woods generally will not have the same level of diversity of wildlife. Your donation today could help us save this ancient woodland and protect the rare and threatened wildlife it harbours before it is too late!” “It is an appalling fact that only 2% of our land in the UK is ancient woodland and 85% of that woodland has no proper legal protection, but even the 15% of that woodland that is protected is not safe when landowners destroying it face few legal consequences.” “But more than through the law, we must remove the incentives people have to destroy nature and allow land which is not good for farming to rewild.” “This appalling wildlife crime is happening across the UK, but Kent has the greatest amount of woodlands under threat. When people can become instant millionaires when planning permission is granted to build a house or factory there is a huge incentive to chop down our woodlands. Landowners often cannot resist these huge, and largely untaxed, financial gains. The fundamental solution is to remove the incentive from the granting of planning permission by taxing the uplift in land value at 100% or better still shifting taxes to land values, which will see less economic exploitation of land and natural resources.” “With tax shifts to land values and nature’s abuse, we will improve the economy as taxes can be taken off people’s income and VAT, this will create jobs and allow people to receive higher wages as taxing monopolies like land, does not have a negative impact on the economy.” “Rewilded woodlands and wetland also has huge benefits for people, sucking in carbon from the atmosphere to combat global heating, cleaning our water and air of pollution and stopping flooding and droughts by holding water in the ground.” Wildwood’s Peter Smith is also a Trustee and Policy Director for the Land Research Trust, a charity dedicated to understanding the economics of land use. Researchers for the Trust have highlighted not only the huge money to be made from land use and the destruction of nature, but the fundamental solutions that are needed if we are to prevent further destruction. Why woodland wildlife is under threat: - Legal loopholes and no teeth in prosecuting wildlife crime
- Huge incentive to destroy nature in the hope of getting planning permissions or using poor quality land for agriculture
- Intensive agriculture creates wildlife deserts between woodland sites meaning they are isolated, and wildlife cannot move between woodland homes and this increases the damage by issues such as climate change
What are the best solutions to saving woodland: - Stop tax dodging and subsidies to landowners
- Shift taxation from income tax and VAT and move it to land values, pollution & natural resource use
- Stop policies that inflate the value of land and put it out of reach of purchase by conservation charities
- Promote policies that favour better quality housing and industrial development on existing sites
Wildwood aims to use the land and all of its natural wonders as a valuable teaching resource; to enable children and young people of all abilities to discover the joy of learning outdoors through our award-winning education programmes and woodland ecology courses. But the time is running out and unless we act quickly, the woodland and all of the amazing wildlife that lives within it, could be lost to us forever. Every little bit really will make a difference, so no matter how much you can spare, please donate today. Notes to Editors: Photos, videos and interviews are available on request Please contact Peter Smith 07986 828229 peter@wildwoodtrust.org | 
No comments:
Post a Comment