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MODERN IRELAND HAS never had an easy relationship with trees. Storm Éowyn, which blasted into Ireland in January with record breaking wind speeds up to 184km/hr has made matters worse.
Trees were largely held responsible for the downing of power lines, leaving thousands of people without electricity or water for weeks. The toll on commercial forestry was just as bad, with the Department of Agriculture estimating that 30,000 hectares of plantation have been destroyed, valued at €500 million. Politicians were heard in the days after the storm saying that trees near roads or power lines should be torn down to ensure impacts on this scale are not repeated.
However, all trees are not equal and a closer inspection would reveal that not all trees were responsible for the damage. Fast growing and non-native conifers, whether planted close to homes to act as shelter belts or in vast monocultures for commercial production, have broad and shallow root plates compared to native or broad-leaved species.
Sitka spruce is particularly vulnerable to ‘wind throw’ (the forestry term for when trees are knocked over in storms) and the glut of knocked over trees is a double disaster for those who lost their forests as the price of timber going to sawmills will now be depressed.
Plantations of monoculture conifers, which are grown to be clear-felled, have long been despised by environmentalists and the many communities who have to live with them. However, they can hardly be viewed more favourably by economic investors as the forestry model is vulnerable to not only extreme weather events but pests and the longer-term implications of climate change. No private investor would put their money into this type of forestry were it not for the generous offering of public subsidy.
Nevertheless, even with €1.3 billion dedicated to the latest forestry programme, landowners are not biting. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, we need to be establishing 30,000 hectares (ha) of new forest every year between now and 2050 to meet ‘net zero’ climate targets. The government has set a target, however, of only 8,000ha, while in 2024, new forests only covered 4,844ha, a miserable rate of progress.
The last government set about addressing issues in forestry though a collaborative forum called ‘Project Woodland’ (I was a member of it). It was to have seen a root and branch reform of the sector, clarifying and streamlining regulatory hurdles to clear the way for a new relationship with trees and forests. This would meet the needs of nature, people and the forestry industry.
The new regime tightened environmental restrictions, which were badly needed to protect sensitive habitats and endangered birds such as curlews and hen harriers. It also increased the payments to landowners for establishing native forests and even included a scheme to allow for rewilding, i.e. allowing the trees to plant themselves, which is the most ecologically successful method of forest establishment. But ultimately it has fallen flat.
The final plan envisaged that new commercial forests would be yet more conifer plantations destined to be clear-felled. The rewilding measure offered the lowest of all payments and is so restrictive that it is unlikely to be taken up. Meanwhile, the industry bemoans the new measures to protect biodiversity, citing them as the reason why planting rates are so low. The new system, in effect, pleases no one.
The last government had a golden opportunity to radically reform the sector. It could have said that all new commercial forests would be based upon ‘continuous cover’, i.e. diverse species with selective tree-felling that keeps the forest intact, rather than brutal clear-felling.
It could have followed international best practice in prioritising rewilding through the natural regeneration of native trees. And it could have changed the mandate of state-forester Coillte, which manages half of all forests in Ireland, so that it would not be a solely for-profit entity. It had the money, the popular support, a near-unanimous Dáil motion in favour of reform and even a Green Party minister at the helm. Reforming Coillte was an action in the Programme for Government. And yet it failed to do any of these things.
The forestry industry must surely have been popping Champagne corks with the ousting of the Green Party from government. Coillte has abandoned its ‘Coillte Nature’ wing, a popular, if modest, initiative to reverse some of the environmental damage caused by their plantations. The industry will set its hopes now on loosening of environmental regulations to allow for more plantations on peatlands or high nature value farmland, although it’s hard to see how this can be achieved given that it would need EU approval.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Countrywide radio programme recently, the new minister in charge of forestry, Michael Healy-Rae, was asked by the presenter if, given the damage to plantations in January, now is the time to adopt a new approach. He failed to give an answer.
Storm Éowyn was strong, but it didn’t appear that it was strong enough to blow down the old ways of doing business. Ireland’s tortured relationship with trees seems set to continue.
Pádraic Fogarty is an environmental campaigner.
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