Almost three weeks on from storm Éowyn, some farmers and foresters are still calculating the costs of damage and repair.
That’s according to Mayo IFA county chair, John Lynskey, who said it will take months for farms to return to how they were before the storm.
“Farmers are counting costs now; the damage done to fences, trees and a lot of tidying up to be done,” he said.
“The availability of help to repair things; it’s an expensive job to get any work done because the conditions and safety have to be factored in. It’ll take months to get things back in a reasonable shape.”
Felling licenses
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Galway IFA forestry representative, Pat Lyons, said that it could take another week to understand the extent of the area of forestry knocked.
He also called on the Department of Agriculture to fast-track the issuing of felling licences. “You can’t carry out an environmental assessment so they should drop that part because it’s unsafe to go into a plantation now,” he said.
“They should hold off on some of the timber that’s planned to be felled, the standing timber, in order to allow room for the windblown timber to be harvested.
“The big loser at the end of the day will be the small family farm forestry. There’s lots of families that planted lands as a pension fund for their children and suddenly that’s prematurely clear-felled.”
Read more
Storm Éowyn flattened €700m worth of timber
High voltage lines within 5m of forestry in ‘many cases’, Dáil hears
New map shows land suitability for forestry
Almost three weeks on from storm Éowyn, some farmers and foresters are still calculating the costs of damage and repair.
That’s according to Mayo IFA county chair, John Lynskey, who said it will take months for farms to return to how they were before the storm.
“Farmers are counting costs now; the damage done to fences, trees and a lot of tidying up to be done,” he said.
“The availability of help to repair things; it’s an expensive job to get any work done because the conditions and safety have to be factored in. It’ll take months to get things back in a reasonable shape.”
Felling licenses
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Galway IFA forestry representative, Pat Lyons, said that it could take another week to understand the extent of the area of forestry knocked.
He also called on the Department of Agriculture to fast-track the issuing of felling licences. “You can’t carry out an environmental assessment so they should drop that part because it’s unsafe to go into a plantation now,” he said.
“They should hold off on some of the timber that’s planned to be felled, the standing timber, in order to allow room for the windblown timber to be harvested.
“The big loser at the end of the day will be the small family farm forestry. There’s lots of families that planted lands as a pension fund for their children and suddenly that’s prematurely clear-felled.”
Read more
Storm Éowyn flattened €700m worth of timber
High voltage lines within 5m of forestry in ‘many cases’, Dáil hears
New map shows land suitability for forestry
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: