Madam, - On behalf of Forest Friends Ireland/Cáirde na Coille, I commend Fintan O'Toole for his incisive column of September 2nd, and your newspaper for other thought-provoking past articles on forestry in the past, as well as the publication of several letters which opened up a debate on the subject.
We believe that the decision to establish Coillte with a remit which allows it to act as a private company was a bad one. It is in the interests of the Irish people to place our forests instead under the control of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, or another appropriate new structure within the Department of Agriculture.
We have a forestry policy based almost entirely on one non-native exotic species, Sitka spruce. Our eyes alone tell us that forestry policy has seriously damaged our landscape. Sitka forests are cold, dark and forbidding, denying the sun's light to the forest floor. Cancer-causing pesticides have been used, together with high amounts of fertiliser, causing water pollution, acidification and damage to fish-spawning grounds. The clearance of large areas has scarred the landscape and harmed wildlife. Disturbance of upland peat areas has caused serious landslides in Mayo, Galway and Kerry.
For economic, aesthetic, touristic and ecological reasons, it is now time for fundamental change in forestry practice. Our native trees mature within very different time-scales, representing very good medium- and long-term economic return, while providing continuous woodland canopy.
Native Irish hardwood forests can better serve people while making profit, and also provide greater opportunity for the cultivation of crafts coppicing and other skilled enterprises. Farming and rural communities would be major beneficiaries. - Yours, etc,
JOHN HAUGHTON,
Chairman,
Forest Friends Ireland/
Cáirde na Coille,
Sutton,
Dublin 13.
Madam, - Fintan O'Toole's scattergun article vilifies every aspect of forestry policy and practice. He does make some worthwhile points, but these are undermined by the overall hostile tone.
He hasn't a good word to say about Sitka spruce, yet it is the timber most prized by sawmills in both Ireland and Britain, and is the engine that has made forestry viable.
For the past couple of years afforestation has dropped to its lowest, and unsustainable, level - approximately 6,000 hectares a year. Negative and misinformed comment will not help to achieve sustainable levels of planting, but only harm the industry even further.
Mr O'Toole makes the fundamental error of conflating Irish forestry with Coillte, completely ignoring the huge contribution made by the private sector. Over the past 25 years the afforestation effort has been almost exclusively achieved by private operators. The percentages of planting in this sector now break down into 42 per cent broadleaves, 33 per cent Sitka and 25 per cent other conifers (larches, pines and firs).
The creation of a beautifully afforested country takes vision, long-term commitment, support, encouragement and wise counsel, not vilification and scattergun criticism. - Yours, etc,
JOHN McCARTHY,
None So Hardy Ltd,
Shillelagh,
Co Wicklow.