Dáil debates

Wednesday, 9 July 2014

Forestry Bill 2013: Report Stage

 

7:50 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 6, between lines 1 and 2, to insert the following:“ “ancient woodlands” means those woodlands which have had continuous tree cover since 1650 or before and which are most likely to have arisen naturally and to be descended from Ireland’s original forests;”.
Some 80 to 90 amendments to this Bill have been tabled, many of which I submitted. I acknowledge the work of the Woodland League and the Environmental Pillar, whose greater knowledge and expertise than mine has informed the majority of my amendments. Amendment No. 1 is one of the most important of the amendments and seeks to include a definition of "ancient woodlands" in the definitions section and spell out what protection of the ancient woodlands as a key objective of the Bill would entail. The objectives of the Bill are set out on page 8.

It is important to protect our ancient woodlands for many reasons. The thrust of many of my amendments is that we need substantially to change our forestry model away from a purely industrial, commercially focused model to one that emphasises the importance of our native species and the need to expand and regenerate our native woodlands. The importance the public places on this was evident in the movement that developed around the campaign against the planned sell-off of the harvesting rights of Coillte. People came out, marched and protested to indicate their opposition to that plan for many reasons. When people became aware of the possibility of the sale of the harvesting rights to our public forests, they were concerned because they saw forestry and our native woodlands as tied up with our identity and as a symbol of our culture. They felt it had to be protected and that failure to do so would be a terrible dereliction of our duty to defend what is unique, important and special about our culture. They felt our native forests were critical to this.

We were a forest nation, as one of my environmental friends always tells me. The country was almost completely covered with oak and other native species. When the British came they destroyed our ancient woodlands. The amendment mentions the year 1650 as a benchmark date to identify the ancient woodlands because that is the year William Petty produced maps, which are the earliest recorded maps of what little was left of our ancient woodlands after their destruction by Oliver Cromwell. When this was explained to me, I did not know that William Petty gave us the word "petty". It is an interesting historical fact.

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