Our forests are disappearing and we’re paying for the ‘privilege’

Our forests are disappearing, and we are paying for the privilege.

Let me explain what I mean:

When I took this photo, this forest was beautiful. In the winter, it was full of life and the smell of leaves and damp earth. In the spring, it was full of green, growing beauty; in the summer, it was cool and refreshing.

However, now it has been chopped down, and so much of the surrounding forest has been destroyed as well. It is a graveyard.

And there is so much around here, and around the country, where this is happening - just take a look at this link if you can bear to see the destruction we face:

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/protecting-trees-and-woods/threats-to-woods-and-trees/

As many of you know, we are in a cost-of-living crisis where wealth inequality is exploding. For many, even the chance to have a woodland near them, or simply to walk around a woodland, is a real privilege. As someone who grew up in London in a low-income household, I feel my privilege, my current privilege, every time I have the chance to walk around a woodland today.

In a cost of living crisis, it might feel like an incredibly privileged concern to care about our woodland, and I understand that.

So the question is: how does this affect all of us, and why are we are we paying for the privilege of deforestation?

Or perhaps, more specifically, if you are struggling to pay your bills and look after your children, as so many of us are, why should you care?

Well, firstly, let me say that if you are struggling, this is not your problem to solve. Focus on yourselves and be proud of what you’re doing. The reason you should care, I will outline:

Right now, many landowners are being paid to cut down forest. Then they are paid subsidies, funded by our taxes, to plant new trees.

They get free labour from people who want to help, and then sometimes they might even get access to further support to take care of this ‘new’ forest.

In other words, the public is paying landowners, by means of misappropriated forestry subsidies, to destroy our children’s heritage and future, to destroy our environment, to get paid to sell their own wood, and then plant trees and claim they participated in environmental action.

Politicians benefit in two ways. They attack environmental subsidies, insinuating that they are harmful, pointless, and wasteful. They also benefit from policies that seem as though they are not environmentally or socially aligned, whilst in reality they divert more funding to their rich, landowning mates to destroy our environment and profit, all whilst claiming moral capital for supposed environmental action.

And what does this mean for ordinary people like you and me who are just trying to get on with our lives?

It means that our system is broken, that our children’s future and the places we go to spend time are being destroyed whilst we pay for the privilege, whilst wealthy elites profit and our politicians perpetuate a broken system.

This is not just about forests. This is about how environmental destruction is a symptom of a broken system that transfers wealth from ordinary people to wealthy elites, whilst destroying our future, which should be the right of everyone.

It is a symptom of a system built around profit and privilege, liberty for power, and extraction of resource from ordinary people.

Thinking about myself when I grew up, this meant that the roads were unsafe to play in. The parks were unsafe because of drugs, and green spaces were inaccessible because we couldn’t pay for transport. Places to congregate were also inaccessible because I couldn’t afford to get the bus to a coffee shop, and parking my bike somewhere was unsafe. And there are many people like this.

Thinking about our children, it means that we are destroying their future. We are also permitting a system that allows the transfer of wealth from ordinary people to elites, whilst permitting the destruction of public resources and securing resource and wealth monopolies for a few.

It means our children will not be able to afford houses, or the luxury of an education, or perhaps job security. And it means our environment will be a graveyard.

So, what does this mean? Does this mean that environmental subsidies are bad?

No. It means that we need to ensure that environmental subsidies are directed from the public to the public good. It means that action of any kind should not be a political stunt that disguises the transfer of wealth from ordinary people to elites.

And when I say that, I think of Thames Water. I think of the many private equity schemes that have been destroying this country.

I hope that, amidst this climate of distractions, identity politics, rage bait, social media addiction, and the replacement of action with outrage, we can remind ourselves to be clear-eyed about what matters.

For me, that is a future for our family. For me, that is the protection of resources that we all should have access to, not just the privileged few.

For me, it means holding our politicians to account, and that means not looking at what they say, but paying attention to what they do for you.

What I mean by that is: ask yourself a simple question amidst the noise and the media rhetoric – what has meaningfully improved for you, your life, and your children, and is the noise of today a distraction or something that will materially move the needle for you your loved ones, your communities, and our country.

And I hope we see our politicians and our media illuminating that these disasters, including Epstein, deforestation, the rising cost of living, and war inflation, are properly addressed.

It means our politicians and our media start naming these disasters and these frauds not as witch-hunts for individuals but as symptoms of a broken system. We must start naming the systemic issues and moving towards addressing them.

To put it very simply, we must start with wealth inequality. Wealth inequality transfers power and centralises it in the hands of a few, who buy our politicians, who buy our media, who monopolise power, influence the use of violence, and erode democracy.

It means enriching a few, by taking from our children.

So let’s remind ourselves to not get distracted by rage bait and the feeling of outrage that replaces action and the calls to divide ourselves along the lines of contrived difference.

And, instead, lets stand together, stop wealth inequality and the transfer of power and resources from ordinary people to elites and demand our politicians fix the broken system to protect our children.