Dr. Ken Byrne:

Failure to achieve the afforestation target means we will fail to achieve the anticipated sequestration that is contingent on that. In the longer term, we will then fail to have harvests of biomass from such forests in the future, which can displace fossil fuel emissions or provide sawn timber that can displace energy-intensive materials. Our renewable biomass production will suffer in the long term.

It is important to point out that there is potential for a significant gain through forest management measures such as extended rotations, which can deliver significant benefits in the short term and perhaps more benefits than afforestation at less cost. There has been some work done on that, which I would happily share. I did not do it but I am familiar with work that can share in that regard.

I refer to planting trees on peat, for example. As much as it is complicated and we should be careful before we change that, we should not do any more of it. However, when one brings that consideration into account, it immediately takes 20% to 25% of our land bank out of the equation. Then that target, if we were to achieve it, has to be squeezed into other places, and we have many different competing land uses. We need to think very carefully about how we wish to manage the landscape as a whole. That goes back to the points Dr. Moran made earlier, although I do not wish to speak on his behalf. We have to think about what is best not just locally but how that fits into the entire landscape as a whole and what we want to achieve from our landscape in terms of food, fibre, a living for the people who are living on it, recreation and biodiversity. It is a very difficult course to navigate but we have to try to do it. That allows us to not have single objective land uses. We need diversity for a whole host of reasons, which, again, I think Dr. Moran mentioned earlier. I hope I answered the Deputy’s question to some degree.