Proposals by the Welsh Government to merge three separate environmental organisations into one Single Environmental Body (SEB) has received severe criticism from the forestry sector amid concerns that its interests will be "trampled underfoot".
Civil servants have been preparing a business plan detailing how the Welsh Government would amalgamate the Environment Agency in Wales, the Countryside Council for Wales and the Forestry Commission Wales into a single body which would deal with all environmental issues.
The plan states that a single environmental body would mean better delivery on environmental issues, combined expertise and better value for money. However, the forestry employers' group Confor claims that a single environmental body could be open to accusations of collusion on economic developments.
The example Confor gives is that the Forestry Commission Wales has a programme to develop a number of wind farms, but another arm of the future environmental body would need to decide if those proposals are given the green light.
The Woodland Trust in Wales also gave a guarded welcome to the SEB proposal and raised concerns that the strengths of the current environmental bodies might not be carried through to any new agency, which could also suffer from the disruption of work, and the potential loss of key staff and morale.
