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Floundering forests The challenges facing the Irish forestry industry

It will take 100 years to achieve the government’s target of 18% forestry cover, writes Dermot McNally.

AT THE RATE that new forests were planted in 2017, it will take 100 years to achieve the government’s target of 18% forestry cover – a far cry from the stated ambition of achieving it by 2046.

2017 marked a 30-year low (circa 5500 hectares) in afforestation levels. Therefore the industry was desperately hoping that the government’s Review of the Forestry Programme would give afforestation a badly needed boost. Most were left disappointed and believe other factors will depress afforestation further.

Sitka spruce

An immediate criticism of the Review was that the grant category under which Sitka Spruce is planted was afforded only a token 2% rise in premium, doing little to match inflation over the period of the Review.

Sitka (loved and hated in equal measure) is Ireland’s bread and butter crop supplying a huge range of construction and related trades. The requirement for an additional 5% broad leaf trees on all new plantations is welcome from an environmental perspective but is being considered by foresters as an effective 5% reduction in the productive planting area: returns from broad leaves are negligible.

Costs are on the up too: Budget 2017 made agricultural land 4% more expensive due to the stamp duty increase. Land prices also rose by an average of 3.6% in 2017 with the trend continuing so far in 2018. These rising costs and falling returns (due to stagnant premium and falling productive area) will push investors to opt for quicker payback elsewhere.

Forestry payments

On a positive note GPC 12, Forestry for Fibre, was trebled to €510 per hectare and the duration of the payment was increased from 10 to to 15 years. Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten believes that his measures will boost demand and price for forestry outputs.

However the type of quality land required to grow biomass crops rarely sells below €6,000 per acre making it financially nonviable in the first instance. And it’s worth noting that a booming biomass market can have negative effects: in the UK biomass quickly overtook panel board as the main end user of recycled woodchip increasing costs in construction and related trades.

Anti-forestry brigade

2018 has seen the anti-forestry brigade roar into action. Modern planting standards minimise many of the problems highlighted by Save Leitrim but the group have urged supporters to object to all new plantations, conifer and broad leaf without distinction.

They say that forestry is harming community but this catch cry seems at odds with the fact that Leitrim’s population hit a fifty year high in 2016, thanks at least in small part to employment provided by the forestry industry.

They also say that vulture funds are swooping up vast areas of forestry whereas 52% of all forestry is in public ownership (such as Coilte). Of the remainder, over 83% planted since 1980 was by Irish farmers. Little surprise then that the lobby group have been accused of scare mongering.

Save Leitrim’s environmental concerns are also quite selective: they are critical of certain forestry practices yet have erected signs arguing for “cattle not conifers”. Livestock production is responsible for a whopping 65% of agricultural emissions in Ireland. Save Leitrim say they aren’t anti-forestry but have also demanded a cessation of all new planting which seems unlikely given our low forestry cover as compared to the EU average of over 30%.

Ineptitude

Government ineptitude isn’t helping the drive to plant trees either. Forestry Minister Andrew Doyle was left red faced in February when the High Court highlighted the crazy situation that eight months after the deadline for the establishment of an Appeals Committee to examine contested afforestation cases, the Committee had yet to be established.

Applications which had been referred to the Committee were unable to be resolved and ended up in a legal limbo. The Appeals Committee adds a further burden to the creaking bureaucracy that requires a plethora of ecological and archaeological reports on new planting sites from numerous state bodies.

The difficulty doesn’t stop there: critics say that Forestry Inspectors are struggling to assess the standards being applied to sites that are moving into their second crop. Edwina Guckian, a Leitrim native concerned with the proliferation of evergreen trees says recently clear-felled sites are being planted in ways that repeat the mistakes of the past.

Incoherent

Politician’s are also making noises, few of them coherent. Sinn Féin have declared that they want to “Stop the Land Grab”, furthering the paranoia about the activity of so called vulture funds.

Independents too such as MEP Luke Ming Flanagan are speaking up. Luke famously wants to cut and burn turf (a non renewable resource) from Ireland’s bogs but he isn’t so keen on the expansion of commercial forestry (a renewable resource). He’s arguing for a continuous cover approach to plantation management which would avoid unsightly clear-fell.

Foresters stalwarts say that’s unworkable for conifer plantations which are prone to wind blow. Marc McSharry TD has also criticised the disproportionate level of planting in Leitrim but seemed to confuse the matter of the 18% forestry target by declaring that ”Our national target of up to 35% afforestation is an honourable ambition“.

Finally representative groups such as the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association have also weighed in against forestry but many feel they are primarily motivated by a desire to retain membership and subscriptions. It’s with this background that Minister of State for Food, Forestry and Horticulture, Andrew Doyle TD must set about trying to salvage the government’s afforestation plan.

Otherwise he’ll be forever known as the Minister who stood idly by as forestry floundered.

Dermot McNally is a journalist and writer who blogs at dermymcnally.com.

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    Mute Dave Walsh
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    May 8th 2018, 7:28 AM

    Trees are not only for money,they are the planets storage of carbon,and give us oxygen…But as a species we now cant see past the next fiscal year..aren’t we clever…

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    Mute TheHeathen
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    May 8th 2018, 7:36 AM

    @Dave Walsh: Walks, bike trails, tourism, nature, scientific studies. The Leitrim slogan shows how thick some people are, granted we should have a lot more broadleaf, but we really do not need more cattle in this country. Leitrim and other counties left out of the ‘ways’ could really boost tourism, along with making money through forestry, by planting trees, not more farming. But as you said, short term gain in this country is what its all about.

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    Mute Aidan Conway
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    May 8th 2018, 8:41 AM

    @Dave Walsh: that’s not entirely accurate forestry plantation is only replacing carbon storage already burnt.
    Forestry is damaging to the environment is mono crop devoid of wildlife and damages the soil. If we are really that concerned about the environment we need to plant woodlands! Briadleaf

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    Mute Aidan Conway
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    May 8th 2018, 8:45 AM

    @TheHeathen: we need more broadleaf woodlands for future quality timber co picking wildlife bio diversity etc…. Nit more cattle we need to consider the environment now and make use of good quality crops sustainable woodlands and fauna

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    Mute TheHeathen
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    May 8th 2018, 8:52 AM

    @Dave Johnston: I live right next door to forestry. I think it’s great, granted there’s a fantastic walk. Should we stop planting trees because you like your views? That’s one of the downsides to living in the countryside, you might get trees planted in front of your houss. If you find that a problem go live in the city and get a block of flats stopping your views. And yes we should plant far far more broadleaf.

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    Mute Michael Powell
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    May 8th 2018, 9:49 AM

    @Dave Johnston: since your stating it’s a matter of choice, other people’s choice is to grow trees. Tough luck

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    Mute selfsustainable
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    May 8th 2018, 11:40 AM

    @TheHeathen: I don’t know where you live but you’d have a hard time walking through the forestry around our house, even the dog can’t get but a few feet into it, the romantic idea of forestry akin to parts of USA where trees are spaced apart so you can move through them is not what’s going on here in this country.

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    Mute Charles Coughlan
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    May 8th 2018, 1:00 PM

    @Dave Johnston: Unfortunately and as I well know you are not entitled to a view, only light and air.

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    Mute Ron
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    May 8th 2018, 8:39 AM

    There really is no forestry in Ireland. A few patches of Disneylandesque native species. The rest is low quality but assuredly expensive pulp wood product and weevel fodder. Until clearfell ceases to be the way harvesting is done, and not till then will there be a shift in silvicultural systems here. But like many of the natural resources in Ireland forestry, fisheries to name a few have been bought, sold and paid for since the entry to rich club for the big 5 (Europe Economic Community) at a huge loss to infrastructure, long term GDP and many support industries to the natural resource economies.

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    Mute Perpetually Prudent
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    May 8th 2018, 9:52 PM

    @Ron: Completely disagree. Your talking a fair bit of pony in that statement.

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    Mute P.J. Nolan
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    May 8th 2018, 7:57 AM

    Since about 1994 the state has had ambitious targets of up to 25,000 hectares of new planting per year, as you pointed out they never came close (average of about 6,000) because most farmers view planting as a failure to farm and it made way more sense to sell the land than plant it. It your land was worth let’s say 6,000 per acre the day before you plant, it was worth 1,500 the day after.
    Another reason was the fact that once you plant it you can never remove them, even after the clearfell you have to replant it, you cannot convert back to to farm land. So effectively, plant and it’s gone forever.

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    Mute P.J. Nolan
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    May 8th 2018, 7:59 AM

    @P.J. Nolan:
    As the author pointed out the bulk of non coillte planting sense 1994 has been done by farmers

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    Mute P.J. Nolan
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    May 8th 2018, 8:05 AM

    @P.J. Nolan:
    Sorry, hit the button by mistake,
    As the author pointed out the bulk of the non coillte planting since 1994 has been done by farmers but in 2014, realising farmers don’t want to plant for the reasons above, they cut the farmer premium by 25% and quadrupled the non farmer premium.
    And people wonder why vulture funds then got involved?

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    Mute Patrick J. O'Rourke
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    May 8th 2018, 8:28 AM

    This article on the blight of toxic monoculture of foreign species that is ruining the lives of, and displacing people as well as being an environmental nonsense is making my blood boil. I don’t have time to comment now but I hope others from Leitrim will appear soon.

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    Mute Su Murray
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    May 8th 2018, 2:03 PM

    A group called Mountain Meitheal planted about 200 trees in the Dublin mountains up by Ticknock Woods .. a few years later a gorse fire, set on purpose, decimated them all. We have plenty of stony fields on the sides of ‘mountains’ are these not suitable for planting trees on? Not to be harvested but to prevent landslides and improve the scenery. Floods of Tourists go to Killarney to see the old woodlands every year.

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    Mute Cormac Ryan
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    May 9th 2018, 8:22 PM

    @Su Murray: no Stoney fields are no longer acceptable under the most recent planting guidelines.

    And those 200 trees you say got burnt are still there but well done on planting ground that had to be replanted anyway.

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    Mute Ros Aodha
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    May 8th 2018, 8:25 AM

    You should see how they have “managed” the Glen of Imaal. Con artists.

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    Mute Su Murray
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    May 8th 2018, 2:05 PM
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    Mute Ruairi Fahy
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    May 8th 2018, 11:17 PM

    A reduction in farming grants would result in marginal land being left fallow and it will naturally reforest in 1 life time, or shorter if broad leafs planted. It will also help hide ugly ribbon development.

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    Mute Robert Harris
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    May 8th 2018, 7:52 AM

    This is depressing reading first thing on a Monday morning,and to cap it all SF jumping on the bandwagon,they are truly just another FF ,opportunist chancers

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    Mute Leadóg
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    May 8th 2018, 8:49 AM

    @Robert Harris: You must have had some weekend.

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    Mute Simon Sprocket
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    May 9th 2018, 7:50 PM

    Endless spruce does not make a forest, lots of other more useful species will grow well in Ireland Sitka and similar is more of a pest species and very low grade wood, the whole funding model needs rewriting, more enforcement so things are done properly, more accountability so neighbouring landowners have at least some say in what is industrial agriculture on your doorstep

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    May 8th 2018, 1:22 PM

    There needs to be a more rational approach to forestry and not necessarily on the basis of counties or constituency targets. Clearly there is marginal land in some counties which could be planted both for commercial and recreational purposed. There also needs to be more focus on added value for Irish timber and how this country can benefit instead of sending much of our timber north of the border for processing into bio-mas and buying it back again.

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    Mute Simon Sprocket
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    May 12th 2018, 9:19 AM

    That’s where your wrong I’m afraid Perpetually Prudent, I owned and ran my own forest services business in the past (actually planning and planting woodland here and abroad), what we have here in “forestry” is basically a scam, a licence to print money for certain players in that industry, few jobs and little to none environmental benefit, it could be done a lot better than it is.

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    Mute Simon Sprocket
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    May 9th 2018, 7:56 PM

    And to add to the last comment, passing this cash crop off as some sort of environmental saviour is more than laughable, it’s just easy to do no thought or effort required. like most of these other posters I think more broadleaf and value adding, quality timbers, furniture etc is the way to go.

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    Mute Perpetually Prudent
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    May 11th 2018, 10:46 PM

    @Simon Sprocket: Unfortunately as much as you want to believe it, your emotions and opinions are not fact. From those comments I can form a hypothesis that you have no background in forestry and you do not know a thing about the industry.

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    Mute Alois Irlmaier
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    May 9th 2018, 2:30 AM

    Always… Quercus rubra for here?

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