When the Prince of Wales said on the Duchy's website in 2020, "Get into woodlands", he meant that it was a well-paid career choice. The Duchy's head forester says that walking in woodlands is good for mental health, but their strategy for old Cornish woods removes the trees that sustain bird diversity.
A man in a Landrover drove up to the gate of Perdredda Wood one afternoon in May 2019. He said that he was there to take a look at the number of deer in the place, and asked me where the main footpaths were located. He said that the Wood had been acquired by the Duchy of Cornwall and that big changes were on the way. He gestured to the old wooden gate and said it would be replaced, and that lots of signage was going to be put up. He promised that he wouldn't be shooting the deer if, as I said, there weren't many that year. (He was often shooting on behalf of the County Council as well as the Duchy, he said.) A clear-felling of three large sections of the old place was completed by October: bit.ly/perocto . By 2025, any parts of the Wood which weren't cleared of all trees were thinned to a level where no deer can feel secure. (That pleasant sense of concealment is gone for a human too.) The deer were mostly of the indigenous Roe species. At the end of 2019, three sharpsh...