Demonstrating how to integrate community forestry into existing area based initiatives.
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REACT (Regeneration through environmental action)

© Copyright Natural England
Demonstrating how to integrate community forestry into existing area based initiatives.

Click the links below to view the REACT Programme Final Evaluation:

The REACT (Regeneration through Environmental Action) initiative stems from a desire expressed in the Rural White Paper (2000):

"the Government would like to see the approach [Community Forests] adopted more widely and will consider how it can be used to assist with the implementation of other regeneration, forestry and community-based initiatives".

The aim of the REACT initiative is to demonstrate how to integrate community forestry into existing Area Based Initiatives (ABIs), for example Sport Action Zones, Health Action Zones, Strategic Regeneration Zones etc. It aims to deliver a more rounded programme of action which meets the needs of local people and business and creates an improved environment and accessible greenspace. 

Most of the existing community-based ABIs attempt to incorporate environmental regeneration alongside their specific target of health, sport etc. However, their objectives, funding and focus sometimes inhibits them from developing these links fully. Linking them to expertise and funding for environmentally led regeneration is helping to unlock this potential and be much more cost effective than developing a parallel project in the area to cover environmental matters.

This approach is consistent with the Modernising Government Agenda and the creation of the Regional Co-ordination Unit and its Reaching Out Action Plan which wishes to see greater co-ordination between and within existing ABIs. By concentrating on existing initiatives it is envisaged that community forestry can build on what they already have to achieve. 

The REACT programme consists of seven projects, which came on stream between April 2002 and January 2003, with match-funding from the Countryside Agency - now Natural England - and the local project partnerships for 3 years. Please see call out box for summary project descriptions.