The biggest surprise in the recent timber supply data issued by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) was the decrease in the volume of timber produced by private forest owners in 2022.
Statistics released in the CSO report, “Wood Input Purchases by Industry”, show that overall volumes decreased by 3% compared with the previous year.
This masks a significant decline in private timber production, as Coillte supply increased by 9%.
The fall in supply from privately-owned forests is a dramatic departure compared with the three-year period (2019-2021) when year-on-year, average increases of 24% in production were achieved.
If this trend had been maintained, last year’s private supply would have reached 1.4m m3. Instead, purchases of roundwood fell from 1.17m m3 in 2021 to 0.88m3 last year (Table 1), a decrease of 25%.
Total log purchases amounted to 3.2m m3, comprising large sawlog (1.4m m3), small sawlog (0.8m m3) and pulpwood (0.8m m3), with most of the remainder (0.2m m3) used for biomass energy.
Licences declined dramatically in 2020 and 2021, but increased significantly in 2022 and 2023 (Table 2).
While these are down compared with 2017-2019, sawmillers acknowledge the recent increases but maintain that there is still a shortfall, especially in the large and small sawlog categories, which amounts to 2.2m m3.
“The sawmills require at least 2.7m m3 of sawlog material,” maintained John Ryan, forestry manager with the Murray Timber Group. “As Coillte currently supply 1.45m m3, the balance (1.25m m3) needs to be supplied by the private sector,” he added.
With annual imports at 0.2m m3, private growers need to supply 1.05m m3 of sawlog from an overall volume of 2.6m m3 based on a 40:60 sawlog to pulpwood conversion.
9.5m m3 of licences
Nothing infuriates sawmillers and forestry companies more than the repeated announcements by Minister McConalogue that “over 9.5 m3 of wood” was licensed in 2022, which he says “is well beyond the National Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD estimated demand”.
The annual COFORD forecast for 2022 is 5m m3, but what Minister McConalogue omitted to say was that the 9.5m m3 of timber licences issued are spread over a 10-year licence period. This provides an average annual volume of 0.95m m3 or 20% of the COFORD forecast (Table 2). All felling licences allow for a 10-year period to carry out thinning and/or clearfells, as stipulated in the Forestry Act 2014.
The minister’s announcement is as farcical as telling a prospective employee that his or her salary is a quarter of a million euro, but that it will be spread out over 10 years at unspecified dates.
Licences of 9.5m m3, as presented in Department dashboard data, are only meaningful if the processing sector has an idea of when the logs will be available for sale and harvesting, which begs the question: why can’t future volumes of timber licences be assessed by the Department on their annual availability, rather than pretending they are ready for harvesting within a year of licences being issued?
This information could be provided by the Department, as each licence application includes the timing of future harvest thinning and clearfell.
Why can’t future volumes of timber licences be assessed by the Department on their annual availability, rather than pretending they are ready for harvesting within a year of licences being issued?
While licence applicants might deviate from their harvesting schedules, this information would provide reasonably accurate annual data on future supply during the lifetimes of licences.
In the absence of this data, the only way to arrive at future annual log production is to average timber licence volumes exponentially over a 10-year period. Using this approach, the cumulative volume of timber from 2017 to the present is estimated at 22.9m m3, which is 1.2m m3 in excess of actual supply, but 17m m3 less than forecast by COFORD (Table 2).
Without this analysis, the cumulative volume for 51.6m m3 since 2017 bears little resemblance to what is actually available.
Admittedly, dividing licences into 10 annual segments is a crude data mechanism, but without access to licence application information, it at least avoids volume overestimation.
It may also underestimate timber availability, but under the current system, there is simply no way of knowing future annual volume harvesting and supply scheduling.
However, the argument by Department officials that licences are not being activated has some credence. Licence holders should be encouraged to thin at present, as prices for pulpwood are holding reasonably firm.
Delaying a clearfell licence is a different matter.
Compared to the historically high prices paid for large sawlog during 2021-2022, current prices are down by 25-30%, so it’s worthwhile to shop around or possibly carry out a further thinning before clearfelling, especially on windfirm sites. It would seem that there is greater awareness now of the value of clearfells and their timing.
“We have always encouraged farmers to thin and clearfell at maximum volume production, and many are now taking this advice,” said John Ryan.
“However, many growers have missed out on thinning during the period when licence approvals were delayed by years, so for some of these, it is now too late to thin, mainly because of the risk of windblow.”
An interesting aside in the licence information provided by the Department since 2017 relates to the potential harvested area. While there may be some overlapping of licence approvals, during this seven-year period, felling licences have been issued for an area of 457,911ha (Table 2), which is over half the forest estate (808,848ha).
IFA calls on Department to halt timber imports
Jason Fleming, chair of the IFA forestry committee, has called for “a halt in timber imports from Scotland” because of the threat of damage by the spruce bark beetle.
“The spruce bark beetle has been present in Scotland for many years, and the area that is supposedly safe is decreasing, so there is a real risk now of importing this beetle,” he said. “There are no safe areas from bark beetle, once it is present within an island, which it is in the UK – including Scotland,” he added.
‘We want to be sure’ of supply
“We don’t want to import logs, but we need to be sure of continuous domestic supply,” said a sawmill spokesperson.
“Sawmills would much prefer to source timber in Ireland, but despite Minister McConalogue’s statement about licence increases, there is still a shortage in domestic supply, necessitating the imports of an estimated 200,000m3 of quality logs, which is 14% of the large sawlog market.”
There are no plans by the Department to ban timber imports from Scotland. “Ireland does not import roundwood from areas known to be affected by bark beetles,” said Barry Delaney, director of forestry in the Department.
“The only area where imports of coniferous roundwood originate is from a Pest Free Area (PFA) in the west of Scotland,” he added.
He said imports of roundwood logs from this PFA are subject to an inspection regime and must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the exporting National Plant Protection Organisation.
“The Department launched a major plant health initiative in its ‘Plant Health and Biosecurity Strategy 2020-2025’, which outlines the importance of plant health biosecurity for Ireland and helps ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the risks to plant health in Ireland, and their role and responsibilities to reduce those risks,” Delaney said.
He reminded all forest sector stakeholders that they “have a responsibility for forest health and should ensure they engage in best practice to help prevent the introduction of pests and diseases on plants and plant products”.
Jason Fleming acknowledged that there are significant biosecurity measures in place, but “we need to be extra vigilant due to the long-distance spread of the great spruce bark beetle and other bark beetles,” he said.
“We have seen the devastation caused by ash dieback. The minister has to urgently bring key stakeholders together to review the current biosecurity procedures, particularly at the ports. This review must consider a complete cessation of imports from bark beetle affected countries.”
The biggest surprise in the recent timber supply data issued by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) was the decrease in the volume of timber produced by private forest owners in 2022.
Statistics released in the CSO report, “Wood Input Purchases by Industry”, show that overall volumes decreased by 3% compared with the previous year.
This masks a significant decline in private timber production, as Coillte supply increased by 9%.
The fall in supply from privately-owned forests is a dramatic departure compared with the three-year period (2019-2021) when year-on-year, average increases of 24% in production were achieved.
If this trend had been maintained, last year’s private supply would have reached 1.4m m3. Instead, purchases of roundwood fell from 1.17m m3 in 2021 to 0.88m3 last year (Table 1), a decrease of 25%.
Total log purchases amounted to 3.2m m3, comprising large sawlog (1.4m m3), small sawlog (0.8m m3) and pulpwood (0.8m m3), with most of the remainder (0.2m m3) used for biomass energy.
Licences declined dramatically in 2020 and 2021, but increased significantly in 2022 and 2023 (Table 2).
While these are down compared with 2017-2019, sawmillers acknowledge the recent increases but maintain that there is still a shortfall, especially in the large and small sawlog categories, which amounts to 2.2m m3.
“The sawmills require at least 2.7m m3 of sawlog material,” maintained John Ryan, forestry manager with the Murray Timber Group. “As Coillte currently supply 1.45m m3, the balance (1.25m m3) needs to be supplied by the private sector,” he added.
With annual imports at 0.2m m3, private growers need to supply 1.05m m3 of sawlog from an overall volume of 2.6m m3 based on a 40:60 sawlog to pulpwood conversion.
9.5m m3 of licences
Nothing infuriates sawmillers and forestry companies more than the repeated announcements by Minister McConalogue that “over 9.5 m3 of wood” was licensed in 2022, which he says “is well beyond the National Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD estimated demand”.
The annual COFORD forecast for 2022 is 5m m3, but what Minister McConalogue omitted to say was that the 9.5m m3 of timber licences issued are spread over a 10-year licence period. This provides an average annual volume of 0.95m m3 or 20% of the COFORD forecast (Table 2). All felling licences allow for a 10-year period to carry out thinning and/or clearfells, as stipulated in the Forestry Act 2014.
The minister’s announcement is as farcical as telling a prospective employee that his or her salary is a quarter of a million euro, but that it will be spread out over 10 years at unspecified dates.
Licences of 9.5m m3, as presented in Department dashboard data, are only meaningful if the processing sector has an idea of when the logs will be available for sale and harvesting, which begs the question: why can’t future volumes of timber licences be assessed by the Department on their annual availability, rather than pretending they are ready for harvesting within a year of licences being issued?
This information could be provided by the Department, as each licence application includes the timing of future harvest thinning and clearfell.
Why can’t future volumes of timber licences be assessed by the Department on their annual availability, rather than pretending they are ready for harvesting within a year of licences being issued?
While licence applicants might deviate from their harvesting schedules, this information would provide reasonably accurate annual data on future supply during the lifetimes of licences.
In the absence of this data, the only way to arrive at future annual log production is to average timber licence volumes exponentially over a 10-year period. Using this approach, the cumulative volume of timber from 2017 to the present is estimated at 22.9m m3, which is 1.2m m3 in excess of actual supply, but 17m m3 less than forecast by COFORD (Table 2).
Without this analysis, the cumulative volume for 51.6m m3 since 2017 bears little resemblance to what is actually available.
Admittedly, dividing licences into 10 annual segments is a crude data mechanism, but without access to licence application information, it at least avoids volume overestimation.
It may also underestimate timber availability, but under the current system, there is simply no way of knowing future annual volume harvesting and supply scheduling.
However, the argument by Department officials that licences are not being activated has some credence. Licence holders should be encouraged to thin at present, as prices for pulpwood are holding reasonably firm.
Delaying a clearfell licence is a different matter.
Compared to the historically high prices paid for large sawlog during 2021-2022, current prices are down by 25-30%, so it’s worthwhile to shop around or possibly carry out a further thinning before clearfelling, especially on windfirm sites. It would seem that there is greater awareness now of the value of clearfells and their timing.
“We have always encouraged farmers to thin and clearfell at maximum volume production, and many are now taking this advice,” said John Ryan.
“However, many growers have missed out on thinning during the period when licence approvals were delayed by years, so for some of these, it is now too late to thin, mainly because of the risk of windblow.”
An interesting aside in the licence information provided by the Department since 2017 relates to the potential harvested area. While there may be some overlapping of licence approvals, during this seven-year period, felling licences have been issued for an area of 457,911ha (Table 2), which is over half the forest estate (808,848ha).
IFA calls on Department to halt timber imports
Jason Fleming, chair of the IFA forestry committee, has called for “a halt in timber imports from Scotland” because of the threat of damage by the spruce bark beetle.
“The spruce bark beetle has been present in Scotland for many years, and the area that is supposedly safe is decreasing, so there is a real risk now of importing this beetle,” he said. “There are no safe areas from bark beetle, once it is present within an island, which it is in the UK – including Scotland,” he added.
‘We want to be sure’ of supply
“We don’t want to import logs, but we need to be sure of continuous domestic supply,” said a sawmill spokesperson.
“Sawmills would much prefer to source timber in Ireland, but despite Minister McConalogue’s statement about licence increases, there is still a shortage in domestic supply, necessitating the imports of an estimated 200,000m3 of quality logs, which is 14% of the large sawlog market.”
There are no plans by the Department to ban timber imports from Scotland. “Ireland does not import roundwood from areas known to be affected by bark beetles,” said Barry Delaney, director of forestry in the Department.
“The only area where imports of coniferous roundwood originate is from a Pest Free Area (PFA) in the west of Scotland,” he added.
He said imports of roundwood logs from this PFA are subject to an inspection regime and must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the exporting National Plant Protection Organisation.
“The Department launched a major plant health initiative in its ‘Plant Health and Biosecurity Strategy 2020-2025’, which outlines the importance of plant health biosecurity for Ireland and helps ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the risks to plant health in Ireland, and their role and responsibilities to reduce those risks,” Delaney said.
He reminded all forest sector stakeholders that they “have a responsibility for forest health and should ensure they engage in best practice to help prevent the introduction of pests and diseases on plants and plant products”.
Jason Fleming acknowledged that there are significant biosecurity measures in place, but “we need to be extra vigilant due to the long-distance spread of the great spruce bark beetle and other bark beetles,” he said.
“We have seen the devastation caused by ash dieback. The minister has to urgently bring key stakeholders together to review the current biosecurity procedures, particularly at the ports. This review must consider a complete cessation of imports from bark beetle affected countries.”
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