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

I do not agree with the Minister State who said there was no agreed international definition of sustainable forest management. I have before me the report on the United Nations conference on environment and development, annex III, non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles for a global consensus on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests. It is not legally binding, but we signed up to it. Therefore, there is agreement on the issue. This consensus is unprecedented at an international level on the nature of sustainable forestry. It is the most comprehensive statement on the matter and brilliant. My fear is that there is a reluctance to sign up to it in legislation because it would tie us to the sustainable forest model we need and that this might infringe on certain vested interests who have no wish to sign up to the model. That concerns me.

It is not as if everything is well in the forest, to use a pun, when it comes to the forestry sector. We are failing to meet our targets. Biodiversity is under severe pressure. Let us consider diseases such as ash dieback, ramorum and so on which indicate that we have got things wrong. Native species are far more resilient and have an immune system that cloned and imported species do not have. We, therefore, need to change the model. We could develop a sustainable model under the Rio forest principles. I disagree with the Minister of State; it is critical that they be included.

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