right to argue that the Government's proposals for the English Forest estate place the entire estate (and the Forest of Dean) at risk.

To vest the estate in a public corporation, as Defra proposes, is to facilitate rather than preclude the possibility of privatisation.

Defra's complacent statement, that 'there are no plans to sell or privatise our forests' has no regard to the long-term perspective advocated by the Independent Panel on Forestry. What matters is not what the present Government proposes, rather what future governments may do.

The argument that such a sale is unlikely is unpersuasive. Harold Macmillan never believed the Government capable of selling the country's Crown Jewels, Mrs Thatcher could not envisage the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

In the event, as we are only too well aware, the Royal Mail and numerous other public corporations have been sold.

The precedent is well established and, in contrast to the Panel's recommendations, Defra's proposals put our forests and woodlands at acute risk and must be opposed.

– Alan Robertson, Burgess Hill, W Sussex.