Telling and selling the good story

A number of notable forestry-related events and initiatives have been contributing to the positive story of forestry. The IFO held a series of walks and information events recently, open to the wider public curious about forestry and the importance of growing trees. Teagasc held a forestry open day at Oak Park in Carlow, which was attended by 300 forest owners, foresters and industry stakeholders. Lakeland Dairies announced it had partnered with Western Forestry Co-op to plant 5,000 native trees. And the RDS Forestry and Livestock Awards recently honoured environmentally conscious foresters and farmers. They are all timely and much needed.

Low and slow to grow

By European standards, Ireland’s forest cover remains low – 38.3 per cent there versus 11.6 per cent here. Confidence in our forestry sector has been chipped away in recent years with licensing issues, payment issues, Ash dieback scheme issues, and more, stunting the growth of the sector. Ireland’s €1.3bn Forestry Programme was launched – eventually – two years ago, heralding a new dawn for the sector. Its aim is to achieve 8,000 hectares (ha) of afforestation annually, offering ‘significantly increased grant and premium rates’. This was followed by Ireland’s Forest Strategy, launched last year, which set out to ‘urgently expand the national forest estate on both public and private land’ and increase forest cover to 18per cent by 2050.
Both plans have been broadly welcomed, but are not yet delivering the goods. Last December, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) published its Forestry Licencing Plan 2024, which estimates that 4,200 new licences will be issued this year. And it stated that ‘there is capacity to issue sufficient licences to meet its annual [planting] target of 8,000ha. But its forestry dashboard tells a different story. The most recent dashboard figures at time of print (to September 6, 2024) show that just 1,122ha have been planted since the start of the year, with afforestation licences for 3,237ha issued. And groups like the IFO and the Social, Economic Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland (SEEFA) have expressed scepticism about the DAFM’s planting targets. We have the strategy, the vision, the attractive grants and payments, and an environmental and climate urgency for more trees, what is the problem?
“This is a section of the economy that is not well developed,” says Nicholas. “There is no real culture of forestry in Ireland.” Nicholas was the first chair of the IFO, a position he held for three years before recently vacating the seat for new chair, Derek McCabe. Nicholas is passionate about forests, one of which – a commercial one – he owns just outside Enniscorthy. But he is equally passionate about pace at which the forestry sector is not growing.

Statistics

In 1928, Irish forest cover was just 1.2 per cent. It has taken almost 100 years to increase that by just over 10 per cent – with mostly non-native species. The target of 18 per cent by 2050 is ambitious but it must happen for the sake of the environment. It can be done – it has been done before. Nicholas gives some insight: “In the 80s and 90s people started to get interested in planting trees because there were government grants available. In 1995-1996, we actually planted 23,000ha. Of that, 17,000ha were planted by private owners. Back then, the average size of private land planted was 10ha. Last year, that average was 5.5ha so we are only planting small areas now. Last year’s size was the smallest planted for 40 years and the amount planted overall was the smallest for 75 years.”
Nicholas points out the problem with this when we have legally binding obligations to reduce emissions, as per the Climate Action Plan. “Policy is made by politicians and not by the civil service, and accountability is at political level. We have legal responsibilities to reduce emissions and part of that is to plant trees. Had we stuck to planting levels in Ireland [from way back] in the first place, we would have no problem with emissions from agriculture. We would have met our entire commitment in terms of reduction of emissions in agriculture,” according to Nicholas.

A slow start

So, the new forestry dawn is slow to rise but forestry is worth the consideration of farmers and, indeed, other owners of land, says Nicholas. He shares his views about the benefits of owning a forest. “There are several good reasons for going into forestry, but three of the most obvious are economic, environmental and social,” he says.
“My own father planted trees and he did so mainly for economic reasons, and it turned out to be good. It has been shown by Teagasc that forestry is the second most profitable farm enterprise after dairy. Forestry is better than fattening cattle and sheep. Now, like everything, there will be good forestry and poor forestry […] but a good conifer plantation on reasonable ground, is highly profitable.” Not only that but, as already highlighted, it is excellent for the environment. Nicholas adds: “Properly managed conifer plantations are far better for biodiversity than any other enterprise, other than deciduous forest which is even better,” says Nicholas. These things, and more, were highlighted at the IFO forest walks aimed at promoting the positive story of forestry, and investment opportunities involved.
Nicholas continues: “As part of these, we highlighted that it was a viable proposition from an economic point of view. There is no capital outlay at the beginning, because you get a grant to plant, you get a grant for fencing and so, unlike other farm enterprises that you might go into, you don’t need any capital to start with and you get a premium for 20 years [for a farmer, 15 for a non-farmer].
“We spoke about the environmental side, and how planting trees is the only actual effective way of reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) in the atmosphere. Other strategies such as solar power and wind power have their place but they don’t remove a single CO₂ molecule from the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration does. It is an active way of reducing greenhouse gases.
“Secondly, some of the heaviest bad-carbon industries – house building and construction – use steel and concrete. Using timber can reduce the amount of steel and concrete used and that has a huge impact.
“And conifers, from an environmental point of view, sequester carbon twice as fast as deciduous trees,” says Nicholas. According to Teagasc, ‘the fast-growing nature of conifer trees provides an efficient method of sequestering atmospheric CO₂, through on-site forest emissions removals (absorbing CO₂), removals through harvested wood products (carbon storage within timber) and emission avoidance by substitution of fossil fuel energy (e.g. using wood instead of oil).

‘We must plant trees’

The new forestry strategy has a lot of really good initiatives, says Nicholas, and the IFO is promoting it, but its key message needs to be stronger. He explains: “Why are we not saying that we just must plant trees? Why are we not saying that we must get licences out in three months? Why are we not saying that there is no alternative to this? That we need to plant, we need to plant for the construction industry, and for biomass, and so on.” These are simply non-negotiables, Nicholas says, and that message needs to be urgently ramped up.