Dáil debates

Thursday, 10 July 2014

Forestry Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed)

 

5:50 pm

Photo of Tom HayesTom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking amendments Nos. 4, 5, 8 and 16a together. I addressed the proposed amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 8 in a comprehensive manner on Committee Stage. The Government is totally committed to the advancement of the principle of sustainable development in Ireland. In 2012 my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, published Our Sustainable Future: A Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland. More recently, he published the general scheme of the climate action and low carbon development Bill 2013. This policy and legislative framework is based on a joined-up whole-of-government approach to firmly embedding sustainable development principles in policy formulation and decision-making across all sectors. It includes a commitment to continue support for the sustainable development of the forestry and forest product sectors.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett has brought forward amendment No. 5. There is no universally agreed definition of sustainable forest management. Sustainable forest management is not a fixed concept. In Europe the most widely accepted definition is that developed by the FOREST EUROPE process. Ireland has integrated the FOREST EUROPE definition with its national forest standards. Discussions are under way in FOREST EUROPE on the criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management and to facilitate the evaluation of progress towards attaining that end. Further to recent communications from the European Commission on a new EU forest strategy, discussions have been initiated at Council working party level and at the standing committee on forestry on the possibilities of applying sustainable forest management criteria to all uses of forest biomass. The outcome of these discussions will, undoubtedly, have a bearing on any future evolution of the definition of sustainable forest management. Given the foregoing, I continue to take the view that there is no need to include the definition of the Rio forest principles of sustainable forest management in the Bill. The sustainable development of the forestry sector is sufficiently covered.

Coillte has signed up to the concept of sustainable forest management through Forest Stewardship Council certification. The Department's forest service regulates in accordance with the principle of sustainable forest management also. I am, therefodre, not in a position to agree to the amendments.

Amendment No. 16a reflects the need to ensure that in the exercise of his or her functions relating to forestry the Minister shall have regard to the policy of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government ion climate change.

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