We are only just beginning to recognise, and protect, the beauty of our native woodlands. But not before time, David Hickie tells Eileen Battersby
After centuries of exploitation and, later, generations of neglect caused largely through ignorance, not malice, the Irish woodland has now been recognised as a heritage of immense value. We have become aware of the beauty of trees, particularly that of the precious native species and ecological wonders of the Irish woodland. Writer Thomas Pakenham, himself a woodland owner and proud custodian of some wonderful individual trees, writes of having first encountered a love that has become a passion on the evening of January 5th, 1991.
It was the night before a great storm, a notorious storm that would threaten many of the great trees on his family estate of Tullynally, Co Westmeath. "I went out in the evening of the 5th and stood contemplating the old beeches in the garden: 19 of them," he writes in Meetings With Remarkable Trees (1996). "I guessed they were a little under 200 years old and 100 feet high. Why had I not looked at them more carefully before? . . . Pessimistically, I put my faith in the weather man. I slipped a tape measure round the smooth, silver-green, lichen-encrusted bellies of the trees and listed the measurements in a notebook. None was a record breaker. But all had been good friends to five generations of our family. As I taped each tree, I gave it a hug as if to say, 'good luck tonight'."
Pakenham follows this with details of what happened that night while the country slept and the winds crashed across the landscape. "When I went down to the garden, crunching over broken twigs and branches, the tallest beech lay there like a fallen sentry . . . two of our oldest beech trees were straddling the main road: they were being cut up by the fire brigade. In the park, each time a gust hit a beech, I thought it would capsise. Then it arched its back and was free. But 12 tall, ancient trees were ripped out of the ground before we heard the last of that storm." It has the impact of a survivor visiting a battlefield. Pakenham evokes the grandeur of the fallen dead.
Mythologised and romanticised by storytellers and poets, trees are supreme witnesses, created by nature not man. The tree towers above the human and lives far longer. It is both symbol and living form. An oak may live a 1,000 years, a yew far longer.
Small wonder the tree is so much a part of myth and legend associated with druids and saints and fairies. Only the horse can rival the tree as an essential element of Irish mythology, and it is the tree that plays a major role in the creation of Irish place names. And, interestingly - just as the horse, for all its magic, mythology and beauty is also central to a massive international industry - the Irish tree in turn possesses a commercial relevance.
It is a relevance that has so often come into direct conflict with our heritage. The tree is the source of a highly versatile raw material, timber. It is this conflict that underlines environmental consultant David Hickie's interesting new book, Native Trees and Forests of Ireland.
Commissioned as a handsome celebration of The People's Millennium Forests Projects - which comprises 16 forests - most readers, however, will respond to it as a concerned text highlighting the status of our native trees and the efforts now being made to undo generations of commercial conifer plantations. This book, though attractive and well served by Mike O'Toole's pretty photographs, has a tougher, more cautionary edge than might be expected. It is this which gives the book its value; part celebration, part subtle indictment.
Planned conifer plantation forest are tree farms, they do not belong in the Irish landscape - they are not part of our heritage. Native, predominately broadleaf woodland, is. It is equally short-sighted, however, to condemn every conifer as an alien; two of our great ancient trees - the Scots Pine and the ubiquitous Yew - are conifers.
Although he does include some material on the mythology and folklore, Hickie has looked more to science and practicality than to romance and mythology - but this is not a criticism. His book is shrewdly pitched between the informed, anecdotal style of Pakenham - who last year followed his first tree book with a second equally lovely and inspiring companion volume, Remarkable Trees of the World - and Charles Nelson's valuable, botanical study Trees of Ireland: Native and Naturalised (Lilliput, 1993). The Nelson book is beautifully illustrated by Wendy Walsh's superb botanical water colours.
Hickie's account places our woodlands in the context of their importance as precious eco-systems vital for the survival of many species of native animals and plants. The comprehensive individual entries on the native trees begins with the Alder, "the Irish mahogany", and continues through the major broadleaf species, including the Ash, Aspen, Birch, Bird Cherry, Crab Apple, Hazel, Holly, Sessile Oak, Pedunculate Oak - grown in Charleville, Co Offaly, where it is magnificently represented by the great King Oak. The species is also to be found in Abbeyleix, Co Laois - Rowan, Strawberry Tree, the Whitebeam, Wild Cherry, Willow, Wych Elm - once a dominant tree in the Irish lowlands but now a rarity. The Irish native evergreen conifers, the Scots Pine and the Yew, that most mysterious of trees, share the magic of the Hazel while also possessing the gravitas of the Oak.
These pen portraits are telling. Not only does Hickie describe each tree and its characteristics, he also includes the use to which the timber is put. This is a strong theme throughout the book. Indeed, it emerges as a dilemma; our love of trees versus our desire for timber products.
The idea behind the People's Millennium Forests Project is the restoration of the native woodland resource. There is also, of course, the powerful symbolism of the tree - how many parents across the world throughout the generations have marked the birth of a child with the planting of a tree?
Trees possess this intense allure, an emotional trigger that the French novelist Jean Giono evoked with his allegorical story, The Man Who Planted Trees (1954). In that tale, an old man is credited with planting thousands of acres of trees through a desolate area of Provençal countryside.
Hickie bravely walks a tightrope between celebrating our new awareness and arguing for urgent forestry policy changes. "I believe the official vision for Irish forestry needs to be seriously reconsidered." The fact that his opinions are presented calmly rather than hysterically means they have a far better chance of being heeded by an invariably defensive officialdom. Even as the New Year dawned, Hickie, pleased with the reaction to his book - which is, as intended, heightening tree and woodland awareness - pointed out "The budget for forestry has been seriously cut. This means that the natural woodland projects won't have the same momentum". Hickie fears that, due to Government cutbacks, the money being allocated to official planting will be targeted for commercial plantations.
These "tree farms", particularly those involving the growing of the conifer varieties, have had a major impact on the Irish landscape - one need look no further than the mountainous areas of counties Galway, Kerry and Donegal. The planting policy ratio of Coillte, the State forestry board, is believed to currently operate at 5 per cent broadleaf to 95 per cent conifer. Among private growers, the ratio is more balanced in favour of the broadleaf - 15 per cent to 85 per cent conifer.
Ireland has the lowest forest cover in the EU, at between 8 and 9 per cent. Historically, of course, the ancient forests of Ireland were cut down by the early farmer/settlers. Clearing for the planting of crops was followed by large-scale clearances of oaks and other hardwoods for the building of Tudor and Elizabethan sailing ships. The absence of re-planting eventually left a legacy of wide-open plains.
Consider the dramatically treeless landscape of Connemara. Hickie points out that Ireland's native woodlands currently stand at only 1 per cent or less of the land surface; "the rest is mostly commercial plantations". While he acknowledges that Irish people are becoming tree aware, and this is obviously a cause of celebration, the fact remains that "Ireland needs more native woodlands".
In conversation, he does not appear as a zealot. Indeed, he displays the deliberation of a lawyer. But his concern is obvious. "I think Irish forestry policy is less developed and lagging behind that of most other European countries."
His book sets out to be fair, and also wants to be as honest as possible without offering a doom-and-gloom message. He believes the native woodlands can be revived. We have to decide what we want of trees. Are they a crop or objects of beauty and heritage? They can be both.
In the book, he writes: "While many native woods should, and will, remain strict nature reserves, other native and non-native woodlands can be restored and managed in order to produce a new and valuable wood resource". He looks at the craftsmen involved in creating beautiful objects made of timber. Asked to nominate his favourite tree, Hickie appears at first somewhat wary, before venturing: "The oak - but that's obvious isn't it? No, I'd say the elm, because it has been almost obliterated by disease".
Coillte is currently restoring some 5,000 hectares of native woods. The process involves the removal of non-native trees which will often include conifers such as spruce. More surprisingly, it also includes the removal of non-native, though now well naturalised, broadleaf trees such as beech and sycamore.
"Should we be encouraged by what is being done for our native woodlands?" asks Hickie in his book, "The answer is yes, because something positive is happening after years of neglect and inactivity."
Not the first time, though, a specialist has raised question about the function of Coillte. Hickie says: "Coillte is responsible for public forestry - the forestry of Ireland is owned by the people - if public forestry is being sold off, which happens" - consider Durrow, Co Offaly - "the public should be consulted. This consultation doesn't happen. Why not?"
• Native Trees and Forests of Ireland by David Hickie, photography by Mike O'Toole, is published by Gill and Macmillan (€30)