Wildlife Circus

Lake in the Country Park If I had been keeping my blog in 2004-08, I might have written about Hainault Forest, one of my favourite open spaces in the LB of Redbridge. But I wasn't, so I didn't, but will make up for it now that I am revisiting the sites that I surveyed >ten years ago, to see how they have changed. Hainault Forest is one of the remaining sections of the former Forest of Essex.  In a survey made for Henry V111 in 1544 its extent was some 3,000 acres. The forest land was condemned as a waste in 1851, and deforested; the deer were removed, and 92% of the old growth forest cut down. Hornbeam and beech are it's characteristic tree species including pollards of the former. The land became marginal agricultural land and subsequently a significant proportion has been built on. Redbridge manage the country park and the Essex side is managed by the Woodland Trust who are in the business of reforesting .   This link to the website - written by local natural

Tree felling Kingsmeadow S. Kay    Last year I sent a Christmas letter to 48 councillors - asking them to attend to the environmental destruction occurring in the borough - which you can see here biodiversity-air-and-water-letter-to-48. But unauthorised tree felling continued during January, captured so well by several witnesses attending Kingsmeadow in an attempt not only to halt the felling of a row of healthy Monterrey Pines - and other mature trees- but also the tipping of several cubic metres of contaminated soil down the riverbank in order to construct a new discus throwing area, without the necessary planning permission or ecological impact assessment reptiles-in-borough     One of the 28 policies in the Kingston Tree Strategy is that 'permission will not be given for healthy trees to be felled'. So I thought it prudent to remind councillors of their biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, 2006 at the Environment and Sustaina