“No we’re not,” said Tom Arnold director general of the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), who was speaking at the launch of a new report into tackling climate change earlier this week.

The IIEA and RDS report, “A Climate-Smart Pathway for Irish Agricultural Development”, set out areas where Ireland needs to improve in order to address climate change concerns. The report took 18 months to draft and identifies agriculture as being a sector which needs to make improvements.

Forestry is one area where Ireland could improve its emissions. According to the report, “there is substantially less land under forest than is the norm within the EU”.

Farmers remain unconvinced by the value proposition of forestry

Forestry as a land use is highly emotive with many farmers seeing the planting of land as giving up on traditional livestock farming. The report itself acknowledges this. “Farmers remain unconvinced by the value proposition of forestry,” it states.

Arnold also accepts that forestry, while being a crucial player in helping improve emissions in agriculture, is a difficult proposition for many farmers.

“There are some issues in the report we are acknowledging but we don’t have all the answers. It is a very legitimate issue (for those opposed to forestry).

“Quite obviously we need to increase our forestry for all sorts of reasons; some are income reasons for farmers, others are to increase the carbon sink. But there are very legitimate concerns about the future of rural communities (and) social infrastructure. We’re going to have face up to those things,” Arnold concluded.

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