Dr. Áine Ní Dhubháin:

I thank committee members for this opportunity to address the Joint Committee on Climate Action on the subject of forestry, climate change and the social impacts of forestry. My statement will cover the social impacts of forestry. I am joined today by Dr. Eugene Hendrick, who will take any additional specific questions on forests and climate change.

As stated in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's forestry programme, one of the aims of the current afforestation programme is to increase forest cover so as to "capture carbon, produce wood and help mitigation". This programme will require a significant number of landowners to change land use by undertaking afforestation. Such a change will have both climate impacts and social impacts. Let us look at what are the social impacts of forestry. In its narrowest sense, the social impact of forestry can be measured in terms of employment generation. Based on research carried out by me and a number of colleagues, we estimated that the total employment, direct and indirect, associated with forestry is 5,531 full-time jobs, while estimates for total employment in the wood products sector is 6,408 full-time jobs. This research dates back to 2012 and I am involved in new research to get more up-to-date estimates of current employment in the two sectors. Employees in the forestry and wood processing sectors are, in the main, rural based and a recent study suggests that a significant proportion of these are part-time farmers.

In recent years, the understanding of what is meant by social impacts has broadened to include impacts on quality of life. Forests may generate social values or be connected with people's lives in ways that contribute or deduct from social well-being. For example, forests provide opportunities for recreation and amenity. Based on published research, estimates of visitation rates to Irish forests vary from 18 million visits per annum to 29 million visits per annum. Recreation in Ireland generally occurs in the public forest estate as there is no right of access to private forests. Other quality-of-life impacts are generally assessed by investigating how local stakeholders perceive forestry as a part of their social and physical environment. In Ireland, a number of social impact studies of forestry have been undertaken. These have focused on case studies in the north west, east and south west of Ireland and have employed structured interviews with stakeholders. The findings from this research indicate that the reaction to afforestation and attitudes generally to forestry are context-specific. Where planted forests have been a feature of the landscape for a long period, more positive attitudes to forestry and afforestation have been recorded. Among the factors that influence reactions to afforestation is the question of who is doing it, whether it is local people or outsiders. If it is the latter, it can lead to a sense that afforestation is replacing people, thereby threatening cultural identity. Even if local people, typically farmers, are the ones engaging in afforestation, there can be a concern that if trees replace agricultural activity this will in turn replace people.

The evidence to date is that the majority of the 22,955 owners of forests planted since 1980 are farmers. The statistics suggest that these have chosen to afforest only a portion of their farm, as the average size of afforestation parcel is 8.7 ha. Typically, afforestation has been carried out on the poorest parts of farms. The income from the forestry premium contributes to farm income and enables those who wish to do so to remain in farming. In 2017, of the €72 million paid in forestry premiums, €67.5 million or 94%, was paid to farmers.

Social impact studies have consistently highlighted the often dramatic effect of large blocks of forest, in particular conifer forests, on the landscape. As trees grow, they heighten the sense of social isolation that prevails in many rural areas. Afforestation has often coincided with social changes, such as a decline in the agricultural labour force, ageing of the agricultural population, and population migration to urban areas. For some, forests are the manifestation of this rural transformation. Afforestation often also challenges long-held beliefs as to the appropriate use of agricultural land.

At a broader scale, public attitudes to forestry in Ireland have been gauged in a number of large studies. In the most recent study, the majority, that is, 88% of the almost 1,000 people surveyed, agreed that forests were an important part of the traditional landscape of the Irish countryside and agreed that all types of forest are good for the environment. Nevertheless, the study showed a strong preference for mixed forests and broadleaf forests over conifer forests. It also showed, as have similar studies across Europe, that the forest outputs that the public rank as the most important tend to be the ecological ones such as the conservation of plants and animals rather than the timber production and employment outputs. I look forward to taking questions on my opening statement.