New forestry minister Jim Paice MP has agreed to establish an industry-led task force to examine deregulation in the forestry sector and to seek to develop a presumption in favour of planting and managing forests.
Mr Paice made the commitments during a meeting with ConFor – the first between the two since the minister was appointed.
ConFor said it hoped the minister could steer a successful path through the challenges the forestry and timber sector would face in the coming years.
At the meeting the minister also agreed to press the Forestry Commission to speed up work on publishing a Code of Good Practice for forest carbon projects and establishing a forest carbon trading mechanism.
Mr Paice said he understood the industry’s concerns about large-scale biomass projects and expressed interest in learning about the results of work that ConFor waws undertaking on carbon trading for solid wood and at incorporating embodied carbon in wood within the Code for Sustainable Homes.
Chief executive Stuart Goodall said the scale and focus of the government’s influence within the wood-using sector was set to change.
“Large cuts in public expenditure and a desire to rebalance the economy between the public and private sectors will have major repercussions for the English forestry and wood-using sector,” said Mr Goodall.
But he said Mr Paice was no stranger to the sector and he hoped ConFor could build on a strong start to their relationship in the coming months.
