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England's Dying Sherwood Forest Needs Money
LONDON - Sherwood Forest, home to Britain's legendary Robin Hood who took from the rich and gave to the poor, needs money -- 50 million pounds ($100 million) to be precise.
Nearly half of Sherwood's remaining oak trees are dead or dying and the rate of death is accelerating from an average of one a year for the past 20 years to five a year now mainly because of old age.
Forest rangers predict that this rate could double in the near future.
When Robin Hood hid out there with his band of men in the early 13th century the forest was dense.
Now less than 1,000 oaks remain -- some of which would have been saplings in Hood's era -- and most are between 300 and 800 years old because of a planting hiatus that lasted between 300 and 150 years ago.
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In a bid to rectify the problem, the management at Sherwood just north of Nottingham in central England is bidding for 50 million pounds from a national lottery fund for a replanting program to revitalize the woodland and bring back tourists.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.