Who can affect dog walkers in the Forest?

The National Park Authority is not the landowner, and does not have statutory maintenance functions.
 
The main landowners that affect us are the Forestry Commission (the Crown lands) and to a lesser extent, the National Trust and Hampshire County Council (certain commons). The main bodies that deal with statutory maintenance are Hampshire County Council (roads) and New Forest District Council and Parish Councils (villages).
 
These bodies are all referred to as 'key partners' and should be involved in all major planning and decision making. These key partners have the legal duty and right to carry out the actions. However, the NPA can have a lot of influence on them, in a number of ways.
Legally, these bodies are required to 'take account' of the NPA's views, and in many cases the reverse is also true.
Politically they have a degree of interdependence, as all are answerable to the national government, and the Forestry Commission has the same master as the NPA, namely Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. It would seem that in the last 18 months, DEFRA has made very clear that the Forestry Commission must be largely subservient to the NPA.
Electorally, the NPA is made up of appointed members, although many are drawn from county, district and parish councils, who must answer to their voters in council elections. In this situation, the pressure is in the reverse direction ie the elected authorities are able to put pressure on the unelected NPA. However, other members are appointed by DEFRA, Forestry Commission and Natural England.
Financially, the NPA has very little money to give to any organisation except themselves (!), but plays a major role in finding funding for others. For example, if the Forestry Commission wants to spend money researching recreation and wildlife, it would find it very difficult to get external funds without the backing of the NPA. This gives the NPA considerable influence over many of the other bodies.
Morally, and to a large extent politically, most of the key partners, including the Forestry Commission and the National Trust, are supposed to consult with the local stakeholders. Recently these organisations have relied on the NPA to head the ‘joint’ stakeholder consultation process.
The Verderers have a role outside of this, as their court has legal powers that are independent of standard national law. The Queen appoints the Official Verderer, the government appoints 4 members from DEFRA, Natural England, New Forest National Park Authority, and the Forestry Commission, and the remaining 5 are elected by the commoners. They deal with important aspects of running the Crown Lands and the commons of the New Forest. Their funding comes from stock marking fees and outside sources, mainly governmental. They have a historic reputation for defending their independence.
Natural England is another key partner. It is a government quango, which has legal duties (often international) covering a lot of conservation issues, and this gives it control over certain actions performed by all of the above.
The National Park Authority mainly has legal rights in matters of town and country planning for the communities within the national park boundaries.
Apart from these key partners are the private landowners, who vary from owners of pony paddocks to large estates. The NPA can only cajole or persuade these groups, which is perhaps why they have chosen to use the planning system to control recreational horse riding. Some of this land will be needed to ‘relocate’ the public from the Crown lands.
By this stage, you will probably be wishing you hadn't started this article! However, you can see what a complex situation it is. NFDOG must be constantly on its guard, because any one of these organisations may make a decision that will affect our members significantly.