Conservation
Conservation and Preservation is of paramount importance but often misunderstood when it comes to the forest.
Both terms fall under the category of “Protection” but have two different meanings. Conservation is actively protecting and encouraging nature and the natural envorinment, enabling it to flourish yet preservation is the protection of certain objects, usually man made and or specific features such as landscapes or structures.
Red list category speciesTo enable the vast array of wildlife to flourish active and sometimes agressive conservation needs to take place. Creatures that fall into a red list category are reliant on proactive conservation work for their very survial.and the same applies to preservation with the obligations and duties to protect things like open vistas or iron age encampments such as Amesbury banks and Loughton Camps which fall into areas of high demand for conservation as well. A prime example of this pressure its at Pillow Mounds in High Beech. A popular go to destination which is actually a neolithic monument surrounded by rare species and important natural habbitats.
Forest tech
Yes, it’s a thing, woodland and technology are not two words you would normally associate with each other. Gone are the days of Lopping for firewood to heat local homes or rabbit farming for a cheap meat scource. The primary uses by people now are mainly leisure and recreational such as walking, cycling and horse riding. Many of these past times are rapidly changing and adapting all bringing with them new and varied demands Electric car charging points, mobile phone signals, digital mapping, solar powered parking machines, “woodtech” is now here. But it impacts people and how we traditionally access and use the forest, especially from a local perspective. Not everyone uses smart technology and many people rightly go to natural open spaces to get away from the net and tech. they go out to engage with nature to disengage with modern life. It is important to find the right balance with all of these new developments and we will be ensuring the issues arising are voiced and adapted to find that balance.
Where will the money come from in the future?
This is a justification for the dreaded “P” word issue: parking charges. A symptom of the budget reductions and cuts faced by the Forest management teams from its primary donor the City of London. This is a massively complex issue that is under a radical remodel, change that will shape the forest for generations to come. Historically low interest rates returning less from fund accounts for an extended period, rise in operating costs and a national pandemics impacts have led us to a position where this remodelling can no longer be avoided. The woodtech framework is key to stability and sustainability in this sense. So over the coming months and years we will see dramatic changes to what we have traditionally been used to. Many people find themselves torn between wanting to honestly support the forest but the actual forest. The appetite decreases towards financially supporting the City of London and what are percieved as in some cases vanity projects. We intened to keep putting forward the peoples opinions on this.
Response, collaboration, involvment
In many ways a lot of this is down to us. “The people”, the benefactors of the Epping Forest Act and the Epping Forest Charity. The love, passion and demand for natural open spaces has rarely been greater and in the recent “pandemic years”as they will soon become we have seen both the good and the bqd of the peoples interactions and use of woodlands and wide open spaces. For as many of us that want to cling on to and protect the natural aspects and solitude of Epping Forest there are millions that view it as a rightful playground and in essence the primary social capital value of the forest to us all is that equality was built into the Epping Forest Act nearly 150 years ago. It’s everyone’s and no one’s but the variable is the value to the individual. Some value it as priceless and some as nothing special but somewhere for the dog to do it’s business. The reappraisal by those who have yet to realise the value of this asset is a key to a continued relationship between the people and the forest.