Timber volumes forecast to double by 2035

Timber production will double over the next two decades according to the All-Ireland Roundwood Production Forecast 2016-2035, published last week by COFORD, the forestry advisory group to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Launching the report, Minister of State with responsibility for forestry Andrew Doyle said: “The increased output of roundwood will be predominantly from privately-owned forests.”

He outlined the challenges facing the sector, which will be required to harvest, transport, process and sell logs which “will increase from four million cubic metres in 2016 to close to eight million by 2035” (Figure 1).

The volume forecasts are based on net realisable volumes (NRV), which show the likely volumes to reach market when reductions for harvest loss due to accessibility, environmental constraints and underperforming crops are factored in. The authors of the report maintain that “harvest losses may reduce over time due to improvements in technology and/or harvesting practices”.

Minister Doyle highlighted a number of measures taken by the Department to maximise production, including “the availability of a Forest Roads Scheme under the Forestry Programme and support for the training of harvester and forwarder operators, as well as voluntary forest certification initiatives”.

The forecast illustrates the transformation which has taken place in Irish forestry within a short period. In 2001, total production on the island was 3.14 million m3, of which 87% was supplied by Coillte, 10% by forests in Northern Ireland and 3% by the private sector (Table 1).

This year alone, private sector supply will have increased ninefold. By 2035, an estimated 60% of all timber will be sourced in privately owned forests. This is due to the major increase in private planting in the 1990s, but also due to the removal of “harvesting rights purchased from Coillte by, for example, Irish Forestry Unit Trust (IForUT) and Davy Forestry Fund (DFF)”, which were previously included in the Coillte forecast volumes.

Private sector production doesn’t include a breakdown of farm forestry and non-farmer investors, such as IForUT and DFF. The current forecast is probably the most accurate to date, as it includes volume estimates based on GROWFOR yield models, designed specifically for Irish forests.

In addition, both Coillte and private sector forecast in the Republic were compiled using a common software platform – Remsoft, developed by Coillte – which allowed the project team to “define the objectives to be optimised, the inputs to be used, the required outputs, and the operating constraints”.

The comprehensive forecast provides yearly volume increases by source (private, Coillte and NI), county, species, category sizes and silvicultural practices. For example, it outlines Ireland’s major dependence on spruce (mainly Sitka) and minimal hardwood production as the major broadleaved plantings in recent years won’t mature until well into the second half of this century. The average volume production by species group over the forecast period is:

The forecast also illustrates the high dependency of volume production from clearfells (Figure 2) compared with previous reports.

“Over the first eight years, thinning volumes account for 24% to 27% of total volume, but thereafter decline steadily to just 11% in 2035,” the report states. “When compared with the previous forecast over the period 2016-2028, there is a decline in thinning volume from 33% of total volume to 23%.”

Sawmills and board mills are likely to have the capacity to process the increased volumes of sawlog and pulpwood material. Many sawmills are currently working only one shift and could double output gradually over the time frame of the forecast.

The availability and utilisation of wood fibre for panel board processing and biomass for energy will be challenging. “The potential wood fibre available for energy, wood-based panels and other uses totals 58.1 million m3 over the period of the forecast,” the report claims.

This volume “increases steadily from 1.8 million m3 in 2016 to 4.2 million m3 in 2035” due to “ the increasing volumes of downgrade and wood residues in line with the increasing volume availability in the NRV forecast”.

The forecast is a major initiative not only for forest owners, foresters and forestry companies, but also for the forest-processing and emerging wood energy sectors, which “require forecast volumes at an all-Ireland level, to underpin investment decisions”, according to the main author Henry Phillips.

“A forecast of roundwood production is a best estimate at a moment in time,” he says. He acknowledges that there are many influencing factors which may result in a forecast not being achieved.

“These include catastrophic weather events, fluctuations in timber markets, changes in forest policy, and long-term impacts of climate change.”

Getting logs from the forest to the eventual marketplace will be a major challenge, so he advises the sector to read the forecast in conjunction with the COFORD’s Mobilising Ireland’s Forest Resource.

Minister Doyle also launched the Department’s GIS Portal accompanying the forecast. This is designed to generate user-defined spatial forecasts up to 2035 for private and Coillte forests (https://publicapps.agriculture.gov.ie/gispublic/rpfms/pages/workspace/public.jsp). The All-Ireland Roundwood Production Forecast 2016- 2035 is available through the COFORD link on the Department’s website or can be purchased through www.coford.ie.