Sir, – While John FitzGerald (Opinion, November 12th) is correct in identifying the need for Irish housebuilders to switch to timber-frame houses – lower cost, faster construction, a potentially lower carbon footprint – he fails to address our decades long, disastrous approach to afforestation as promulgated by Coillte and before that the Forestry Department.
In 1988, with a new Forestry Bill, and generous funds from Europe, we could have established a State agency dedicated to enhance our environment and our woodlands. Instead, we were lumbered (excuse the pun) with an unaccountable arboreal vandal, Coillte, a company which has become the biggest and most rapacious landowner in the country.
Mr FitzGerald’s suggestion that Coillte would be the appropriate vehicle for State expansion of forests is incredible.
Yes we desperately need afforestation, but not on the Coillte model. It’s monoculture policies have led to rampant disease which in turn means widespread and intensive use of pesticides, damaging the fauna, polluting the watercourses, and all of us. We might know even more of this damage if Coillte was amenable to Freedom of Information legislation which it sadly is not.
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So, a more balanced and safer afforestation programme yes please, but a bigger, badder and bolder Coillte – no thanks.
– Yours, etc,
JOHN DOWLING,
Mount Merrion,
Co Dublin.