Farmer confidence has been lost in forestry at present due to the current licence issues in the sector – with work urgently needed to rectify this issue, an industry stakeholder has stressed.
In addition, a “two-tiered anticompetitive” system has developed which disadvantages farm forestry, it is claimed.
Marina Conway, CEO of the Western Forestry Co-op – which provides backup services to farmers going into forestry in western counties – spoke to AgriLand about the issue, warning that the country is set to miss out on climate action targets set out for forestry as a result of the logjam currently crippling the sector.
At present, the government is missing climate action targets set out in five different government-backed policy documents, namely: the climate action plan; the Programme for Government; the forestry programme; Food Wise 2025; and Forest Products and People.
‘Bottleneck’
“They’re all going through a bottleneck right now, which is the licensing process – which isn’t really fit for purpose because it’s not able to grant enough licences to achieve an 8,000ha programme,” Conway explained.
Last year we only achieved 2,500ha; the year before that, about 3,500ha, and the year before that about 4,500ha, so it’s been gradually declining over the years.
Highlighting the bigger concern for the industry, the CEO warned that farmers are at present being turned off the idea of planting forestry because of the hassle they see their peers encountering:
“Farmer confidence in forestry has been lost because of the people who are at the other end of the stage, people who have committed their land to forestry 15, 20, 25 years ago, are now struggling to get a licence to be able to manage those trees – thin them, fell them, go in and do any works with them.
“It’s just become so cumbersome and overly bureaucratic,” she added.
‘Created a system they can’t manage’
Conway stressed that it wasn’t a case of people not wanting to do the correct environmental checks and assessments, but rather it’s a situation where authorities “created a system that they cannot manage”.
The CEO pointed to some eye-opening statistics, noting: “In farm forestry in 2014, there were 6,500ha planted that year, and 96% of it was done by farmers. Last year in 2020 we had about 2,500ha planted and 24% of it was farmers – so you can see the utter collapse there in farm forestry.
Whether you want to plant 1ac, 10ac or 80ac and whether you want to plant 1ac of commercial conifers or broadleaf or you want to plant native woodland or agroforestry, everything must go through the exact same stringent process.
Conway said the Department of Agriculture’s forest service is “basically putting the same measure on everything”, adding industry would ask is it really necessary.
“They’re using the National Parks and Wildlife Service appropriate assessment guidance which uses a 15km likely zone of impact for plants and projects.
“Even within that guidance it says that in certain situations that the 15km could be a lot less based on the area, site conditions, sensitivities, it could even be as low as 100m.
“But there is no system to differentiate whether you want to plant your 2ac of native woodland down the back of your farm or whether you want to plant 20ac of commercial forestry on your farm or on the side of a hill; everything is going through the exact same process.
“I know in fairness to [the department] that they have increased the resources hugely; they’ve gone from one to 16 ecologists but it’s still not sufficient because the licences aren’t coming out; they’re not there.
“I don’t believe there are [enough resources put in place]. I do believe they’re really trying; I do 100% believe that, but no there isn’t because the licences aren’t coming out.”
Two-tier system
“Our workload as well has tripled, no more than theirs, we have to do so much more additional work. We’re working with the farmers and the land owners, we’re doing all this additional work – but we’re not seeing the throughput at the other end; the licences are not coming through.
Noting that you can submit and pay for an NIS [Natura Impact Statement] to be done privately, the Western Forestry Co-op CEO said:
If you do that, they will guarantee that your application will be going to the top of the queue and they guarantee that you’ll get your licence in three months – but only if you pay privately.
“So they’ve created this two-tier anticompetitive system which completely disadvantages farm forestry.
“They have created a system which completely disadvantages farmers,” Conway asserted.
“Whether you’ve a 1ac, 10ac or 20ac NIS, it’s the same cost of €1,100 to €1,300. For the ecologists, it’s the same work – they still have to go through the 15km likely zone of impact; they’ve to check every Natura site within that.
“Just because it’s 1ac it doesn’t reduce their work. They have to look at the cumulative impact; planning permission, every plan and every project within that 15km for your 1ac of woodland.”