HANDS Off Our Forest is, and must be, the watchword over the coming weeks for every Forester.

Like everyone else I welcome talk of consultation but the reality is that the consultation will be too late. Unless we secure an amendment to the Public Bodies Bill to protect the Forest of Dean, as it was protected under the 1981 Act, our Forest will be sold.

Warm words about preserving public benefits of woods and forests under any new ownership arrangements, guarantees for future access and protection of flora, fauna and biodiversity sound reassuring. But they do not translate into real safeguards for the future of the Forest.

The Government says that the Bill that I am opposing will "fundamentally reform the public forestry estate, with diminishing public ownership and a greater role for private and civil society partners".

That's an ideological position – some people don't mind who owns the nation's woodlands. Well I do, especially in relation to the Forest of Dean where we have no legal rights of common or of access. We have customary privileges which would be lost if any part of the Forest were to pass into private hands.

We have a duty to retain those customary privileges, not just because we are fortunate to live in the Forest, but because it is a national asset enjoyed by hundreds thousands of visitors each year.

Like this Government and the last Government, I am very much in favour of the well-being agenda, encouraging people to take more exercise, to walk and to cycle, where better place to do this than in the Forest of Dean.

We are told that if the Forest were to be sold, public access would be protected - but that cannot be guaranteed. We have very few designated rights of way and it is the Forestry Commission that gives permissive access to the Forest, providing parking facilities, gates, walks etc.

And they do it at a remarkably low cost, far lower than the cost of National Parks such as the Cairngorms or Exeter which attract a similar number of visitors each year.

Let us celebrate the beauty and diversity of our Forest and let us do everything we can to safeguard its sustainable future as a national asset. This is our duty.