Chairman's message

I had the honour of welcoming the Prince of Wales to The National Forest last month as he spent a whistle-stop day in Leicestershire. The residents of Markfield, where his helicopter landed, had turned out in force and gave him an enthusiastic welcome. His first official duty was to plant a tree in The National Forest as part of a community improvement programme in the village. This gave me the opportunity to brief the Prince on our progress.

He was very interested to hear that we had now doubled the forest cover in the area and that around 80 farmers and landowners had benefited from the Tender Scheme. The Prince has long championed the cause of the farming community and welcomed the Tender Scheme as a means of assisting farmers to diversify and sustain their livelihoods. His one note of concern was about the future of the woodland economy - no doubt arising from his own experience as a substantial woodland owner.

His concern was reflected at the Board of the National Forest Company recently when we considered an important Report and Action Plan for a new forest-based sustainable economy which focused on users and markets for timber and related products. We approved a series of recommendations for work over the next five years including encouraging the development of a wood fuel user, supplier and developer network and to promote the certification of woodlands owned by the Company as part of a wider programme to adopt forest certification in The National Forest as a quality benchmark. We also agreed that representations should be made in response to the government's White Paper on the future of fuel to stress the role of wood in helping to meet the demanding future targets being set for sustainable alternative fuels.

Prince Charles said that he would like to return to The National Forest for a longer visit and learn more about our work. So hopefully we may have the opportunity in the future to share with him our thoughts in response to his concern.