Secret "shopping lists" of public woodlands were handed to the government by the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts before huge public anger halted the proposed sell-off, the Guardian can reveal. The lists were a "betrayal of their members", according to the leading environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, who said the organisations had "rolled over to have their tummies tickled by the government". The same organisations now sit on the independent panel set up in the wake of the fiasco to advise the government on the future of public forests.
Porritt is member of a new pressure group called Our Forests that on Wednesday set out its vision, including a plan for a "Domesday forest" involving planting a billion trees in England. The report also demands that "all our public woods are distanced from the control of 'big government' and given full and lasting protection for 'big society'," and warns that public woodland could still be sold off.
A huge public backlash ...