OUR AFFORESTATION programme is in serious trouble. Only 7,000 hectares of trees were planted last year, the lowest figure for decades and insufficient to sustain the forestry industry into the future. It is a business that contributes an estimated €1.6 billion to the economy each year and employs 16,000 people, apart from its environmental and tourist benefits. It cannot be allowed to fail.
A report on how the situation might be improved was produced by a former secretary general of the Department of Agriculture John Malone. The primary causes for the collapse were identified as the rising cost of land and an effective ending by the State company Coillte of its afforestation programme. Other inhibiting factors included complicated requirements by the Forestry Service and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, inadequate scientific data, and competition from other grant-aided schemes. It suggested a relaxation of the absolute requirement to replant felled woodland.
Any change to this legal requirement could pose an immediate threat to old mixed woodland. Like the ban on smoking in pubs, there is no obvious compromise. Once the absolute prohibition goes, ways will be found by unscrupulous people to secure felling licences and clear land for housing. Our richest areas of biodiversity could be lost. The law as it stands may be a blunt instrument and inhibit some farmers from planting trees on their land. But there is no clear evidence it is the major factor. Before the law is amended, even on the basis of careful guidelines, other recommendations in the report should be implemented. And perhaps the Government could consider the commercial mandate it imposed on Coillte in 1989. Since the State company was denied EU forestry premiums in 1999, it has reduced its planting programme to near zero on the grounds that it does not make commercial sense to plant land that costs €4,000 a hectare. Not only that, it is slow to replant some of its marginal holdings, perhaps for the same reason.
A minimum annual planting programme of 10,000 hectares is required. The sector is now almost entirely dependent on private afforestation, where management is poor and holdings are fragmented. A more attractive grant system was recently introduced for farmers, but it may not be enough. If Coillte, a State company, is not prepared to buy land because of its commercial mandate, why should the Government not look elsewhere? What about Bord na Móna which owns more than 80,000 hectares paid for by our taxes?