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THE ESSEX NATURALIST
appointed the Conservators and their management functions are,
in turn, exercised through the Epping Forest Committee. This
Committee consists of twelve members of the Court of Common
Council (the elected representative body of the City of London)
and four Verderers, who are elected by the Commoners and who
serve for seven years. Although the Act brought to an end the
application of the forest laws to Epping Forest and terminated all
Crown rights therein, a link with the past is preserved by the
Crown continuing to appoint a Ranger, at present H.R.H. The
Duke of Gloucester, upon whom various powers and duties are
conferred and imposed.
This Club is honoured to continue under the royal patronage
of the Ranger. Further, we were all pleased to learn that the
Commoners had appointed as one of the Verderers one of our
members, now an honorary member, Mr. Bernard T. Ward. Not
only is he one of the best-known amateur naturalists in the county
but he was also founder Vice-Chairman and later Chairman of the
Essex Naturalists' Trust.
The Forest, standing as it does on the threshold of—one might
almost say, within—the great metropolis, with unrestricted access
and attracting countless visitors throughout the year, must be a
conservationist's nightmare. The Forest Superintendent has
written (Epping Forest, published in 1958 by the Corporation of
London), "It will have been noted that one of the obligations
imposed upon the Conservators is to preserve as far as possible
the natural aspect of the Forest.... Discussion on natural aspect
can be never-ending. It is easy to recognise the natural aspect
of an individual tree or plant but far from easy to dogmatize upon
the natural aspect of a wood or area of grazing land, since nature
is never still and the balance between one species and another is
ever-changing. Furthermore, when through many centuries, man-
kind has interfered with a given area—even though it can be held
that this interference is, in itself, natural—it becomes almost im-
possible to say with exactitude what is the natural aspect . . . .
The policy of the Conservators is to guide the natural cycle towards
as broad a variety as possible, restraining a species only when it is
apt to assume pest proportions, as it may do wherever man's
artificialities have more than usual upset the natural balance,
rather than to impose any set tidy pattern on the life of the Forest.
Fires, artificial drainage or wholesale felling are typical of the
violent disturbances which can materially affect the balance
between decay and degeneration. In the application of this
policy, it is not forgotten that those organisms by which decay
takes place are an essential part of a balanced cycle of forest life
so that, notwithstanding that it might be regarded as ugly or
untidy, an old withering tree of long years standing might be
treated in its fall and decay with the same respect as a young
sapling".
Before the formation of The Essex Naturalists' Trust, the
various natural history bodies in the county—the Essex Bird-