Recently-made changes to the private forestry felling licence application process has been welcomed as a “positive development”, though criticised as “tinkering around the edges”.
According to the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), the changes made by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine includes improvements to the appropriate assessment procedures and the removal of the need to submit a natura impact statement in order for a felling and road application to be prioritised.
However, Vincent Nally, the association’s forestry chairperson, said today (Wednesday, June 23) that farmers still require clarity on when the current backlog of licence applications will be cleared.
“We need to see new targets and increased output of licences associated with these improvements.”
“Farmers have heard similar promises from the department in the recent past, but the increased output never materialised,” Nally argued.
The changes to the system came about following an internal department review of the system and assessment procedures.
Nally expressed his hope that the changes would “improve efficiency and get licences out quicker in the short term”, until the recommendations from the new Project Woodland were forthcoming.
“These changes are very much tinkering around the edges of a system that does not work for farmers.
“We are waiting on Project Woodland, which will hopefully lead to a complete overhaul of the forest licencing system, to deliver a new and improved system that will support farmers to plant more trees on farms,” The IFA forestry chair commented.
He continued: “Each of these licences represents a forest owner who wants to manage their forest. Every additional week limits their management options and potentially reduces the value of their timber crop.”
Nally highlighted that a natura impact assessment may still be required in certain circumstances, and he called for an environmental planning grant to be introduced to support farmers with the cost.
According to the IFA, there are, at present, some 6,000 forest licence applications in the system, of which 1,860 are privately held and are for afforestation.