THE ESTABLISHMENT of a forestry council and a change in the legislation which forces forest owners to replant forests, has been recommended in a major report on the industry.
The report, Factors Affecting Afforestation in Recent Years by John Malone, also listed the negative image of forestry in terms of land use as another major bar against expansion of our forests.
So too was the price of land which has gone up from an average of €6,474 per hectare in 1996 to €17,318 in 2005.
The report said this was a major inhibiting factor in the development of afforestation here.
Mr Malone, a former secretary general of the Department of Agriculture who was asked to draw up the report, said it would be very difficult to achieve a planting level of 100,000 hectares per annum.
Mr Malone's report found that when the EU decided that Coillte, the State forest service, should not be paid forestry grants, it had more or less withdrawn from afforestation after that decision in 1999.
In 2001 State planting fell to 317 hectares and in 2006 it stood at 25 hectares because it did not make commercial sense for them to afforest land if it cost more than €4,000 per hectare.
In the same period, private plantings went from just over 15,000 hectares to just over 8,000 hectares.
In his recommendations to the department, Mr Malone said there should be an immediate review of the activities of the Forestry Service and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, to eliminate duplication and unnecessary referrals of applications from landowners to plant trees.
He said applications have to be examined for environmental, planning and other reasons, and the drop-out rate during this process could be as high as 50 per cent.
He recommended that clear protocol and time frames between the two services should be put in place and an appeals system established immediately.
He called for the absolute requirement to re-afforest land when it is cut down to be amended in legislation because it was a bar to people entering the industry.
He called for a non-statutory forestry council to be set up which would be mandated to generate a stronger forest culture.
It would also be given the task of representing the totality of view in the sector and be given the task of formulating views on promotional initiatives.
Mr Malone also recommended that Coillte should consider using a proportion of its profits to fund afforestation in lieu of paying a dividend to the Government.
He said that heretofore, the forestry programme had been operated on a national basis but there was now a case for having a more targeted strategy.
"Access and tourist benefits are more appropriate to some parts of the country than others. This implies a wider menu of grant options, especially between timber and recreational," Mr Malone said.
He said that a greater emphasis should be given to achieving a balanced approach on a regional basis where environmental considerations arose.
A decision, he said, to afforest should not aways be a simple yes or no, especially in the context of acid-sensitive soils.
The report also recommended that the distinction between farmers and non-farmers in the context of support schemes should be revised.
It also called for changes in the Forestry Environment Protection Scheme which would set a lower rate of entry than 8 hectares to the scheme and the upper limit of 40- hectares should be extended on a scaled basis.
Mr Malone did not recommend that farmers be paid a "green payment" of €250 per hectare as had been recommended by the Irish Farmers Association as a reward for the environmental and non-timber benefits of afforestation as it was outside the terms of reference of his report.