Chair of Funding of Forestry Schemes Review Group

Bridgeena Nolan

Chair of Funding of Forestry Schemes Review Group

Forest Service

Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

Johnstown Castle

Wexford

Dear Ms Nolan,

Please find below a submission to the forestry review taking place with regard to funding of forestry schemes.

Forestry grants and premiums

Background

At the turn of the 20th century, Ireland had only approximately 1% forest cover. Over the following century, this rose to about 10% forest cover, which is still well below the European average (about 44% for Europe as a whole, and 24.5% for North West Europe). Although the forest that would occur here if nature were left to natural ecological succession is primarily broadleaved woodland, the majority of the forests that currently exist are conifer plantations established with timber production as the primary objective. Irish forests are dominated by 85% exotic species, as compared to about 4% of European forests (less than 1% if Russia is included). However, pressures on our environment, including climatic change and over-exploitation of natural resources, and changing values with regard to our environment, have contributed to the need for a new approach as to how we value, plan and manage the Irish forest estate.

The Helsinki Process, to which Ireland has signed up, defines sustainable forest management as: Stewardship and use of lands in a way, and at a rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil, now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local, national, and global levels, and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.

That Ireland was almost entirely deforested for several centuries presents particular challenges, not least that silvicultural knowledge has been lost and needs to be re-learned.

Facing into a new century, forestry practice needs to change significantly to meet the challenges of climate change, producing timber for local use, and fuel to diversify energy supply, while enhancing biodiversity. Because of the very long lead in times for forestry, this will require sustained and reliable government investment to reverse the deforestation that took place several centuries ago. Targets for increasing the area of land under forest cover are ambitious, and it is essential that afforestation and reforestation are fully sustainable, as once forests are planted, mistakes are difficult and costly to correct.

Recommendations

Specific measures are needed to favour broadleaved forest establishment and management.

·  Historically forestry has been relegated to poor marginal land, often peatlands, which has led to considerable environmental damage. Higher rates of grants and premiums are essential to secure land suitable to establish high-quality, mixed forestry.

·  Grant schemes currently only support a limited set of species and mixtures, which do not provide the scope to practice innovative silviculture, or maximise biodiversity. Instead of designated mixtures, any mix of native broadleaves should be possible, to be done in a planned way

·  Incentives should be established to encourage close-to-nature silvicultural systems.

·  Restructuring of existing single aged plantations to a more diverse age and species structure should be incentivised.

·  Incentives should be provided to encourage supply of good quality trees of native provenance.

·  The stop-start nature of support provided to schemes such as the Native Woodland Scheme and the Woodland Improvement Scheme in recent years has been extremely damaging to confidence in forestry, and commitment to provision of native tree supplies and planting of forestry. Growth of trees by nurseries have lead-in times of several years, and ultimately, long delays in the rollout of schemes will impact on the willingness of nurseries to risk growing native trees when there is a history either of schemes not going ahead, or being extensively delayed. Unlike in other sectors of farming, unwanted supply cannot be shunted off to cold-stores to await better times. In acknowledgement of these particular challenges the following are recommended:

·  Multi-annual funding for native species programmes and schemes;

·  Where existing forestry programmes are under revision, existing schemes which already have European Commission approval should be rolled over until new programmes are finalised and have full Commission approval.

·  Expertise drawn upon when planning schemes should be broadened. The planned enhancement modules of FEPs and all other future grant schemes should have significant input from forest ecologists and close-to-nature silviculturalists.

Replanting requirement must be subject to suitability of site.

The replanting requirement seems to be rooted in the objective of ensuring that public funding of forestry via the grant system is not wasted, by requiring that sites are replanted after harvesting. However, recognition of the principles of sustainable forestry has evolved, and there are broader considerations of equal importance. Reforestation can be seen as an opportunity to review whether sites are suitable for forestry, and the replanting obligation must be subject to the ecological suitability of the site and surrounding habitats. Where sites are unsuitable for replanting for environmental reasons, consideration should be given to incentives for restoration.

Penalties in general need tightening, in particular with regard to unauthorised felling.

Fines should be increased to take account of inflation and be a sufficient deterrent to deter breaches of the Forestry Acts with regard to unauthorised felling.