The two main issues facing the forestry and forest products sector in Ireland are achieving a viable afforestation programme and increasing wood mobilisation. Both are interlinked, especially in ensuring the economic and social benefits of forestry, and also achieving targets in climate change mitigation.

Forestry is a multi-purpose resource, so it also has to achieve a range of wood and non-wood benefits including biodiversity, recreation, water quality and landscape enhancement. Its key role is in climate change mitigation, which is why the outgoing Government proposed an annual afforestation programme of 8,000ha.

Fine Gael

The Fine Gael manifesto is probably the most comprehensive which is not surprising as Andrew Doyle has had responsibility for the sector since 2016.

It states: “Over the next five years, we will reach and maintain a target of 8,000ha of new forestry per annum, the equivalent of 22m trees every year.”

It is the only party that acknowledges forestry as an industry.

The party’s manifesto states: “We will develop markets for harvested wood products and biofuels, recognising the important role the commercial forestry sector has to play in meeting our climate-change challenge and achieving the goals of the circular economy.”

Farmers who have had their forests destroyed by ash dieback – detected in 2012 – will welcome the party’s promise to address this disastrous disease

There are problems with the party’s promises, especially on afforestation.

Since February 2011, they have presided over a continually declining planting programme, averaging 6,300ha (2011 to 2016) but has been in free fall over the past three years with only 3,500ha planted last year.

Farmers who have had their forests destroyed by ash dieback – detected in 2012 – will welcome the party’s promise to address this disastrous disease. The more cynical will wonder why it has taken an election to arouse the party from its inertia and will want more detail on what compensation – if any – will be provided in the “new and improved scheme to assist owners of [diseased] ash plantations”.

The Tree Council of Ireland and the public will welcome its promise to build on National Tree Week and institute a State-sponsored annual national tree planting day.

Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil acknowledges the importance of afforestation as “a vital tool to reduce our carbon footprint”.

The party welcomes the “inclusion of land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) within the scope of the new EU 2030 climate change framework” which “will broaden the tools available for Ireland by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, through carbon sequestration”.

The party manifesto aims to ensure that “the next CAP prioritises and incentives the planting of trees on farms” as well as to “work towards achieving the 30% national target for broadleaf planting, which is a condition of EU state aid approval for forestry”.

The party also promises to “expand the NeighbourWood scheme for increased recreational tourism opportunities”.

In a perplexing statement, the party states that it will “restore the annual forest premium rates to pre-2009 levels for grant and premium categories (GPC)”.

The premium rates are much higher now than pre-2009. The party also suggests a priority “will be put on broadleaves in order to incentivise the planting of native species”.

Green Party

The Green Party has an innovative small-scale planting proposal, which would act as an introduction to forestry for virtually all farmers in Ireland.

This new afforestation scheme “will start with the payment of a special planting premium to 120,000 farmers around the country for the planting of one hectare of woodland on their farms”.

This, the Green Party argues “will help us to increase tree cover from 11% to 30% of Irish land by 2050”. How the party arrived at 30% forest cover is not explained if based on 120,000ha (1.7% of the land area) and the 8,000ha annual planting programme proposed by the outgoing Government.

While some of the Green Party approach is innovative, much of the thinking is outdated when scrutinised

The Green Party’s approach will move “away from growing large-scale monoculture of fast-growing species such as Sitka spruce to mixed, diverse, close to nature continuous cover forestry, with a wider range of services, benefits and forest products”.

While some of the Green Party approach is innovative, much of the thinking is outdated when scrutinised.

The average afforestation site in 2018 was 6.5ha comprising 1.8ha broadleaves 1.2ha diverse conifers and open spaces, and 3.5ha Sitka spruce. Still too much Sitka for the Greens, but hardly a monoculture by any definition.

Sinn Féin

The standout Sinn Féin proposal is “to extend the [afforestation] payment period from 15 to 30 years”. An increase in the forestry premium period is welcome, especially for broadleaves. Doubling it would require €4.5bn based on an 8,000ha annual programme over the next 30 years and an Exchequer commitment to 2080.

Sinn Féin supports “native broadleaf species, which provide continuous cover, and where the purpose is to delay the harvesting of the timber, rather than accelerate it”.

Precluding commercial forestry in climate change mitigation, ignores David Attenborough’s claim that “we also have to farm trees, just like we do other crops and create a new generation of plantations”.

The party attacks current policy which incentivises “multinational corporate interests to pursue a ‘landgrab’, particularly in the west”.

Labour Party

The Labour Party is short on content and detail in its catch-all statement: “Labour pushed hard to promote alternative forest systems (such as continuous cover and broadleaf forests), as better for climate-change mitigation and as providing many co-benefits including improved water quality, sustaining biodiversity, providing community recreation facilities and potentially generating new jobs.

General

There is wide support for hedgerow planting. Fianna Fáil will “work at EU level to get recognition of the estimated 660,000km of hedgerows throughout the Irish landscape as a carbon sink”. The Green Party proposes “to provide better support for the restoration and planting of new hedgerows to provide biodiversity corridors, carbon shelters and nutrients in our agricultural system”.

A number of parties have identified Coillte in their proposals. Fine Gael “will invest in schemes that promote recreational forestry and will work with Coillte on projects such as Coillte Nature, to provide the public with access to recreational forests across the country”.

People Before Profit promises a “complete overhaul of Coillte and its remit, replacing it with a dedicated environmental mandate and a not-for-profit business to reforestation”.

Fianna Fáil proposes to “update the legislative mandate of Coillte so it will also have a specific remit for supporting the delivery of climate change commitments and biodiversity protection”.

Missed

None of the parties mentions the major role of engineered wood in construction and the importance of commercial coniferous forestry in this development. Sustainable wood construction, now recognised throughout Europe for carbon storage and fossil fuel displacement, is missed by all parties.

Nonetheless, forestry stakeholders will welcome the attention forestry is currently receiving from all the main parties.