Giving those villagers an incentive to preserve forests by allowing sustainable levels of harvesting, it turns out, is a far better way to save those forests than erecting tall fences around them.

ECONOMIST: Local difficulties

To save the fast-disappearing forests, Parliament in 1581 passed a bill to forbid tree-cutting within 22 miles of the Thames, 3 miles of the coastline and 4 miles of the Sussex forests.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Prince Charles has long been a high-profile environmental advocate and in 2007 set up The Prince's Rainforest Group to find a solution to save the world's threatened forests.

BBC: Future grandchild for Prince Charles sparks new green plea

Yet before long it is hard to feel much sympathy for anybody involved save the judge, Mr Justice Bell, refereeing two mind-numbing years of argument about rain forests, litter, the cooking temperature of hamburgers, exploited hamburger flippers and so forth.

ECONOMIST: Libel