Department defends Irish forestry as carbon store

Ireland’s forests are not a net emitter of greenhouse gases, the Department of Agriculture has insisted, following claims that they are by an environmental lobby group.

The Department of Agriculture has refuted a claim made last week by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) that Irish forests are “now a growing source of greenhouse gas emissions rather than a sink absorbing them”.

In response the Department has said that Irish forests “are, and remain, a substantial and growing store for carbon dioxide.

“Recent suggestions which claim otherwise, are misleading insofar as they are looking only at one subset of the estate.”

Both the Department of Agriculture and FIE refer to the Department’s report “Ireland’s National Forestry Accounting Plan 2021-2025”.

Accounting plans are a requirement of all member states, designed to examine and detail the carbon balances that are expected to occur over the period 2021 to 2025 with particular reference to older forests.

The plan categorises forestry land into the following two different types when assessing carbon accounting:

Afforested land

This land category comprises all forests that will be 30 years of age or less during the accounting period 2021-2030. These represent new forests planted since 1991 and all new forests planted over the next 10 years.

“Over that period these forests will be a significant sink for carbon dioxide, sequestering well over 1m tonnes of CO2 annually, when harvested wood products are included,” said a Department spokesperson.

Managed forest land (MFL)

Forests categorised as MFL include all forests that are older than 30 years of age during the period 2021-2030. It is estimated that over the period 2021-2025, when harvested wood products are included, MFLs will be a small net source of approximately 0.1 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

“However, it is important to recognise that forests are replanted after harvesting and as forests mature the projection is that these forests will return to being a sink,” said the Department spokesperson.

“Because of particular circumstances and timing, MFLs will be a small carbon emitter over the upcoming period [but] the amount in question will be far outweighed by what the rest of the estate is storing and sequestering.

“They will obviously continue to retain vast stores of carbon as part of the 312m tonnes in Irish forests overall.”

The IFA, Irish Timber Growers Association, Forest Industries Ireland and the Society of Irish Foresters have criticised the FIE claim, including comments made by Emeritus Prof John Sweeney, which one spokesperson said “doesn’t draw a distinction between managed and afforested land”.

Since then Prof Sweeney has clarified his position. “Yes, the report does refer to the 60% of Irish forests that are ‘managed forests’ planted before 1990,” he said.

“These are net emitters. The other 40% are mostly private forests and are net sequesters to the tune of 3.8Mt per annum at present.

“New afforestation, however, takes a number of years to recover the emission losses incurred in establishment and their sequestration potential is also determined by many other unknown future economic and environmental factors.”

Dr Eugene Hendrick, chair of the National Council for Forest Research and Development (COFORD) called for careful examination of the Forestry Accounting Plan before reaching conclusions.

“What some commentary on the plan fails to grasp is that the total of Ireland’s forests are a net sink for carbon dioxide and will remain so for the duration of the current greenhouse gas accounting period and beyond,” he said.

“This approach coincides with the Paris Agreement and role it sets out for forests in tackling ever increasing levels of fossil carbon in the atmosphere.”