At the annual general meeting (AGM) of Limerick and Tipperary Woodland Owners (LTWO) last Saturday (November 16) in Tipperary Town, there was an impassioned call by members to all political representatives to prioritise the need to save Ireland’s forestry industry.

The group has said that action is needed now if Ireland is serious in its intention to reach its climate change mitigation commitments, otherwise taxpayers faces €6 billion in likely fines.

Chairman of LTWO, Simon White said: “The annual planting targets will continue to be missed because of the short-sighted approach of the Department of Agriculture in penalising forest owners who have done nothing wrong.

"The department cannot stand by and watch woodland owners be wiped out financially by a disease it allowed into the country or by making it impossible to harvest their timber, and at the same time advocate that more people should sign up to forestry.”

At the meeting, several assertions and calls to action were agreed was follows:

The ash dieback plan must be amended, with urgency, as it fails to implement the recommendations of the ash dieback review report. Ash plantation owners must be fairly compensated for the losses if there is to be any chance of reinstating landowner confidence in growing trees. The compulsion to replant when a forest is destroyed by disease must be removed from the legislation, this policy is counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional;
The forest service must take urgent action to protect the country from diseases that threaten to attack existing forests. Several species of bark beetle are at risk of being imported into Ireland and threaten to wipe out forests which will cost billions. There is enough commercial forestry to meet Ireland’s demand but bureaucracy prevents it from being harvested so we have to import timber from infected areas;
Growing native broadleaf trees for environmental benefit needs to have a permanent financial return for landowners. The tree grower needs to be paid for the carbon sequestered and needs to be supported in the costly management of such forests if we wish to encourage sustainable woodland creation.

LTWO Ltd., said that it also backs the call for an independent expert forestry group to direct future forestry policy and that there is a need for a dedicated minister specifically to resolve the ongoing "forestry crisis".

The group is urging anyway involved in forestry to raise these issues if canvassed ahead of the General Election on November 29.

LTWO group has said that during the term of this last government, one third (4,000 jobs)have been lost in the timber industry in Ireland.

The crisis in forestry has worsened in all but one area, the speed at which licenses are processed, However, the time to process applications is still far too long, according to the group.

The woodland owners have also claimed that the resolution of the ash crisis has been underfunded because the government and forest service failed to measure the costs involved, causing an underestimation, which growers facing huge losses are left to bear the brunt of.

"Never before has planting significant areas of trees had such potential to mitigate so much of the detrimental environmental effects of modern living and yet the government [has] imposed such unattractive conditions causing this state to have the lowest afforestation level for many decades," the group stated.

"The policy is to plant at the least, 8,000ha of new forestry each year. Because we have four years of poor planting rates, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] call for 18,000ha of new plantation [per annum].

"The fact that we have planted 1,600ha in the last 12 months, even with the new forestry programme being promoted at vast expense, proves there is something drastically wrong."