Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 November 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Sequestration and Land Management-Nature Restoration: Discussion

Mr. John Spink:

In terms of forestry, the rules around what you can plant and where you can plant it have changed dramatically over recent years, so the risk of repeating the mistakes of the past are very low. Even in terms of sitka spruce, there now needs to be a significant amount of native broadleaves included in those plantations, so there will no longer be planting of 100% sitka spruce. That is no longer allowed in many of the areas where there have been problems from previous plantings.

The next question was about anaerobic digestion. We see the major potential as probably being the production of forages to be combined with slurries for anaerobic digestion. Again, there is very close regulation in terms of the renewable energy directive regarding the energy cost and savings that have to be made for anaerobic digestion. There is no risk that will be done in a way that will increase emissions because they would not be classed as renewable energy. It will have to be with very low, if any, quantities of fertiliser, relying on legume rich swards and the use of the digestate from that from the anaerobic digester for the replacement of nutrients.

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