Ms Geraldine O'Sullivan:

A regulatory review was done as part of Project Woodland and was published. We were very unhappy. Everything was given that could not be done. It was something we had very much advocated. The review contained a proposal that there would be one licence, so that you would not have to apply for a licence for managing and for thinning. We recognise that clearfell is a massive change and that there was a requirement there, but we thought that for normal, standard management thinning practices you would not require a licence. It would help for there to be timely management. This was not recommended in the report but underneath in the regulatory analysis, it listed all the examples of countries where this is going on where there are smaller areas where you are allowed to do it. As long as you give notice, you are guaranteed that you can do it. There is an unwillingness there but we see it happening in other countries. We undertook a survey of other European countries and saw the difference between how private forest owners and larger operators are treated. That is because of the scale, the type of operation and the capacity to deal with that environmental regulation. It can be done but unfortunately even in the latest Philip Lee regulatory review it was not a recommendation.