UK forests up for sale

[Lamplighter]

Should a Yank even dare bring up this question ?

If it were close to April 1st, I'd think it was a joke, but...
Is this true ? If so, the US Republicans will just love the idea

guardian.co.uk
For sale: all of our forests.
Not some of them, nor most of them – the whole lot

Tories have never been treehuggers, but their plans to sell off all
state-owned forests are unwarranted, unwanted and unworkable.

We now know, thanks to the junior environment minister Jim Paice's frank evidence
to a recent House of Lords select committee, that the government is considering the sale
of not just "some", or even "substantial", amounts of woodland
as the public was originally led to believe,
but of all state-owned English trees across the commission's 635,000-acre Forestry Commission estate.
This includes many royal forests, state-owned ancient woodlands, sites of special scientific interest,
heathland, campsites, farms and sporting estates.

Paice also accepts that foreign companies might want to buy up the trees,
and that foreign-owned energy companies might want to cut the whole lot down for renewable energy.
This is clearly not going to be received well in the Tory shires, where the trees mostly are.

I suggest going to the link as there is more (blog ?) discussion