Sir, – Cormac O’Carroll (Letters, November 13th) asks why we need a licence to plant trees. Twenty-five years ago, O’Carroll’s late father, Niall, former chief inspector of the Forest Service, in this letters page, stated, “The planting of broadleaves is to be promoted to the extent of 20 per cent of the total area planted... for reasons which seem to owe more to ideology”.
The reason we now have stringent licensing is to further that very questionable broadleaf ideology. Sensible licensing of forest operations is welcome for environmental protection and unnecessary exploitation of the forest resource.
Elements within the Forest Service are using the licensing issues to push an ideology to vastly expand questionable broadleaf afforestation, by breaking the current model of important wood production achieved by growing conifers.
That conifers will sequester more carbon than broadleaves is proven, and well-managed conifer forests are havens for native mammals, lichens and fungi. But to the broadleaf-at-any-cost ideologues, this is wilfully disregarded. We must diversify our tree plantings and plant native broadleaves where suitable, but a productive and important sustainable resource must not be sacrificed to woke ideologues, who now control forest policy in Ireland. As a forester, I witness daily the deliberate breaking of our forest industry. Pippa Hacket, the Minister with responsibility for forestry has said that the 8,000 ha per annum target will not be met until 2030.
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For any investor, given the generous incentives, a rate of 20 per cent return on planting is not unusual. The abysmal rate of new planting suggests barriers to investment, and that is due to the current licensing system, which conveniently blames court rulings for the imposition of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world on the planting of trees.
Undoubtedly the 15km radius around every forest planting or operation hinders tree planting and thwarts Government policy. The Forest Service’s refusal to explain the reasoning for the 15km radius suggests there is no justifiable basis for it. It is a deliberate ploy to collapse the current forest model.
One yearns for the days when O’Carroll’s father led our Forest Service. Those now entrusted with the wellbeing of our forest resource appear to be hellbent on destroying it.
– Yours, etc,
RICHARD ROMER,
Kilmaley,
Co Clare.