Indicators for people and forests

 

View the people and forests chapter of 'UK Indicators of Sustainable Forestry', as published in October 2002.

Any recent developments, and links to additional information, are shown below.

E1. Visits to woodland

• Our statistics web pages contain more information about visits to woodland, including the Day Visits Survey, the Public Opinion of Forestry Survey and Forestry Commission Visitor Surveys.

E2. Extent of open public access

• A report was published in May 2005 for a Scottish study "Investigating environmental justice in Scotland: links between measures of environmental quality and social deprivation". Proximity to woodland was one of the topics analysed. The study found that people living in deprived areas are less likely to live near to areas of woodland. However, for areas of new woodland, the analysis showed that there has been a tendency in planting towards deprived populations, suggesting that policy may be redressing this overall balance. To see the full report, access the SNIFFER website search and enter SNIFFER code UE4(03)01.

• The Woods for People project has created a UK-wide inventory of accessible woodland.         Revised estimates for 2004 and new estimates for 2006 are in Forestry Statistics 2007 Table 5.11.
• Based on this inventory, the Woodland Trust report Space for People proposed a Woodland Access Standard for people to have access to a woodland of an adequate size near to where they lived.  Information is in Forestry Statistics 2007 Table 5.12 
  

E3. Public awareness

• Reports are now available from 2007 Public Opinion Surveys undertaken across the UK and separately in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The UK results show a rise in awareness of forests, woods and trees in the media to 64% of respondents in 2007 (from 52% in 2003 and 50% in 2005). Further spatial and demographic analysis are available in the reports published in November 2007 on our statistics web pages.

E4. Community involvement

• The estimate for Scotland is from a report on Community Involvement, compiled by Reforesting Scotland in October 2002 for the Scottish Forestry Strategy indicators of progress.
• The GB Public Opinion survey 2005 shows that 6% of respondents had been consulted about plans for creating, managing or using woodlands in their area; 42% of respondents would like to be consulted in the future. Similar results for both questions had been obtained when the question was first asked in the 2003 survey.
• The 2007 UK Public Opinion Survey asked a slightly different question. In the 12 months prior to being interviewed, only 7% of respondents said that they had been involved in any of the three community events listed (member of a community based woodland group, participated in organised tree planting event, or some voluntary work in connection with a woodland).
• The Community Woodland Network website lists more than 200 community woodland groups and organisations throughout England.

E5. Historic environment and cultural heritage

• The reported Welsh figure of 999 Scheduled Ancient Monuments (SAMs) within 50 metres of woodland overstates the number in woodland. A more comparable figure is 467 SAMs within 5 metres of woodland boundaries.
• Information about Heritage Trees of Scotland was compiled for Treefest.  The Tree Council has compiled information about Heritage Trees of Britain and Northern Ireland.

E6. Health & Safety

• Accident statistics for Forestry Commission employees show an annual rate of around 10 reported accidents per thousand employees in 2007/08.  This is higher than the level in 2006/07, and similar to the annual average of around 10 per thousand for the 5 years to 2005/06, but lower than the average of around 15 per thousand for the period shown in the published indicators.

• The Health & Safety Executive website includes their latest statistics.  Based on the Labour Force Survey it estimates that reporting rates for non-fatal injuries are around 43% for employees.

• Detailed industry statistics on accidents reported to the Health & Safety Executive are now available for the ten years 1996/97 to 2005/06. The annual averages for employees in forestry and for wood processing industries, excluding accidents to the self-employed, are in Forestry Statistics 2007 Table 6.5.