Ashdown Forest and Nitrogen Oxides-The truth.

Where are the trees?

You dont have to be stupid to work in public services but it sure does help.

 

This quote comes from the soviet sounding "Local Plan " drawn up by idiots in the Town Council with help from idiots in Wealden and idiot (expensive) private consultants

 

 

"Increasing development and nitrogen oxide emissions from motor vehicles are threatening the rare heathland ecosystem of the Ashdown Forest"

 

 

Notice how emissions from motor vehicles are named as a threat to the rare heathland ecosystem of the Ashdown Forest.

Before I get onto the total bullshit "vehicle emissions" lets just consider the rare heathland ecosystem which is at threat.The Ashdown Forest used to be a forest-you know with lots of trees-naturally it has never been heathland.A lot of what you see today is the result of industrial activity in the 16th/17th Century when the trees were used to make charcoal which in turn was used for Iron production.

The majority of the tree cover was destroyed during this period to produce what could be described as a post industrial wasteland.

 

Over the last 30 years or so there has been an active campaign by the owners (East Sussex County Council) to convince people that the Ashdown Forest is not actually a Forest but heathland.Rather than restore the Forest back to its original glory the Council and the Conservators have decided that trees (an essential part of a forest) are not needed and need to be grubbed out enabling them to restore the Forest back to how it was at the end of the industrial revolution-soil erosion and all.

What was once luscious forest is now a semi lunar landscape peppered with gorse .

 

Those nominally  in charge of the Forest are now saying that this "unique habitat" which is actually not that unique is being damaged by emissions of nitrogen oxide from vehicles.Firstly nitrogen oxides covers a multitude forms of reactive nitrogen which is the main component of the air we breathe.Cars do emit nitogen oxides but they are not the main source and given that the forest doesnt have huge numbers of vehicles crossing it at any one time its unlikely that they are the main source of this supposed harmful nitrogen oxides.The main source of Nitrogen Oxides in the air is actually the atmosphere where the breakdown of Nitrogen causes Nitrogen Oxides to form quite naturally.This process is accelerated during electrical storms when huge amounts of nitrogen oxides are produced by lightning when N2  (nitrogen gas) atoms are ripped apart and form Nitrogen Oxides.

 

So in short even if the Ashdown Forest is under threat its because the ecosystem we have is not the natural ecosystem (trees are not so sensitive of Nitrogen Oxide levels) .Left to its own devices nature would re establish forest not heathland and only constant management by the conservators enables the heathland to take hold but it doesnt mean it will prosper.

Turning the Ashdown Forest into The Ashdown Heath has been an unmitigated disaster but the people responsible for that disaster will not admit it-they will just seek scapegoats and the biggest scapegoat of them all is the private car which the eco fascists and their agenda 21 "bible" declared war on a long time ago.

I forgot to mention another source of Nitrogen Oxides which seems to have been overlooked and that source is biomass burning beloved by the greenies.