Felling and restocking regulations: strategic environmental assessment

8 Proposals for monitoring

8.1.1 Section 19 of the 2005 Act requires that the responsible authority monitors the significant environmental effects of the implementation of the PPS in order to identify any unforeseen adverse effects at an early stage and undertake appropriate remedial action.

8.1.2 A wide range of existing programmes are in place at the national and local level to report on environmental status and assess performance against established environmental indicators. Since the publication of the second SFS, indicators have been developed which enable progress against the objectives of SFS to be judged ^[65] . These include indicators that are probably of most relevance to the Regulations such as: area of native woodland, area of coniferous woodland and area of broadleaved woodland where timber production is a significant management objective. Given the minor effect the Regulations are predicted to have in isolation and given the range of indicators currently in use, it is recommended that existing indicators are utilised to monitor its cumulative effects with that of other PPS.

8.1.3 It is recommended that timing of felling and restocking is also monitored – perhaps making it a requirement to report once the activity has happened as part of the permission conditions.