Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the invitation to address the House. I welcome the opportunity to speak to Members about forestry at a time governments across the globe are seeking to implement policy solutions to tackle the climate crisis. In recent years we have had our own crisis in the forestry sector, with particularly low planting rates. Today I will outline the Government's plans to reverse that trend and to put in motion actions that will help us to deal with our climate change challenge as well as addressing other important environmental and societal needs.

Planting trees is one of the most effective actions we can take to tackle climate change. Compared with our fellow EU member states, we are coming from a relatively low base, with forest cover of 11.6%. This low level of existing forest cover gives us the scope to increase tree planting significantly as part of our climate change mitigation efforts. Since taking on ministerial responsibility for forestry, my primary focus has been to address the barriers to planting and to understand better what Irish people want from our forests in order that we can progress towards our target of planting 8,000 ha per annum.

I recently launched a new shared national vision for trees, woods and forests in Ireland until 2050. This vision is rooted in the principles of planting the right tree in the right place, for the right reason, under the right management. The shared national vision also sets out our vision to use wood as a material of choice in the buildings we construct. We canvassed views across society to inform our shared national vision. That consultation was wide and deep; we sought views from communities and young people, from a representative sample of citizens in a deliberative dialogue, from all sectors of society through a public consultation process, and through a series of engagements with stakeholders from across the sector.

The draft forestry programme and forest strategy are out for public consultation. That closes next Tuesday. We are anxious to hear all views before we finalise both the programme and the strategy. I encourage all those with an interest in forestry who have not yet done so to send in a submission if they want to make their views known.

This will be the best funded forestry programme in the history of the State, with €1.3 billion committed to its implementation. This is a huge vote of confidence in forestry as a public good and in our farmers. The structure of the new programme recognises that we will depend to a large degree on farmers to deliver our targets for increased planting. Our farmers have done this in the past and I am confident they can do it again in the future.

I myself am a farmer who has planted trees through a previous forestry programme. I know from personal experience how well farming and forestry can complement each other. Forestry has a huge role to play in supporting rural Ireland, offering an additional income stream for farm families open to diversifying some of their holdings into alternative land uses.

The new programme will have something to offer all types of farm enterprise, with 12 different forest types, including agroforestry. Whether they are dairy farmers in County Tipperary, sheep farmers in County Louth, tillage farmer in County Wexford or dry stock farmers in the midlands, they will find a forest type that suits their farm. If they are organic farmers, they can now receive an organic payment as well as a forestry premium on the same piece of land if they sign up to the new agroforestry scheme. It is important to remember that all farmers will continue to receive their basic payment or basic income support scheme payments on land they choose to afforest.

Key to re-engaging farmers with forestry is increased incentivisation through the annual forestry premium rates. The new forestry programme will deliver on this, with premiums increasing from between 46% to 66%. In a further backing of farmers, we have introduced five extra years of premia for farmers, giving them an income for 20 years.

We are asking not only that private landowners sign up to the new forestry programme, but also that public bodies play their part. The new forestry programme will incentivise public bodies to establish new native woodlands on suitable public land. This includes Departments, higher education authorities and local authorities. I believe that this intervention under the new programme will provide these public bodies with a wonderful opportunity to play a valuable role in our climate action efforts.

For those who wish to engage in tree planting for the first time, the new native tree area scheme is worth exploring. It allows farmers to plant up to 1 ha without the need to apply for a forestry licence. Such planting will, of course, be subject to environmental requirements, but the application and approval process will be much more straightforward. The scheme will facilitate farmers to plant appropriate areas on their farms and along watercourses at an accelerated premium rate over ten years.

That brings me to the licensing process, which we can all agree has been a difficult issue over the past few years. I am well aware that it has negatively impacted the perception of forestry among some landowners. I am happy that we have worked hard to improve the system, tackle the backlog and reduce turnaround times for licence applications. We have brought in more ecologists, forestry inspectors and administrative staff to tackle the licensing workload. We have looked at our processes and made them more efficient, and we will continue to make improvements to the system.

As Deputies will be aware, we also commissioned an independent expert legal and regulatory review of forestry licensing, which was carried out by Philip Lee solicitors. The report was published in June, following extensive stakeholder consultation. While it is clear from Philip Lee's analysis that a robust forestry licensing regime is required as a matter of EU and Irish environmental law, the report makes a number of recommendations for positive action in areas where greater efficiencies and streamlining of processes can be achieved within the existing regulatory regime. I am pleased to inform the House that my Department is now working on a detailed and time-bound action plan for implementation of those recommendations.

The steps we have taken to date to improve the licensing process have led to a welcome increase in the number of licences issued. We have issued 4,279 licences so far this year. The pace of processing applications has also picked up significantly. We are issuing nearly 30% more licences than applications received. That means that the backlog continues to drop, with faster turnaround times for new applicants. The backlog has reduced from 6,000 in August 2021 to 3,700 in January of this year. At the beginning of November, the number of licences at hand stood at 1,606. While we still have work to do, we have achieved a lot, and I am confident that, thanks to the investments we have made, my Department is well equipped to meet the licensing demands of the new programme.

This year will be a record year for roads and timber volumes licensed. Some 272 km of forest roads have been approved, which is already the most on record for any given year. The volume of felling licences issued year to date stands at 8.6 million cu. m. This is in the context of the Council for Forest Research and Development, COFORD, forecast for harvesting this year having been just over 4.5 million cu. m.

We have issued licences for 4,500 ha of afforestation this year and we continue to prioritise afforestation files in advance of introducting of the new programme.

Beyond afforestation, this programme contains a wide range measures and interventions to support a healthy and viable forestry sector. I will not go through all of them here today but I will highlight some. Current forest owners are very important given that we depend on them to supply wood to our sawmills. This is an industry that delivers renewable wood products and maintains employment in rural areas.

Forest owners will have the opportunity to join knowledge transfer groups under the new programme. In these groups, forest owners will learn from their peers and from professional foresters how best to manage and optimise the yield from their forest. The new programme will also contain measures that will support sustainable forest management, such as continuous cover forestry, a woodland improvement scheme for thinning and tending of broadleaf forests and a native woodland conservation scheme.

As with the current programme, we recognise that forests can sustain damage from unforeseen events such as threats from weather, pests and disease. That is why we have included for reconstitution of such forests, which includes ash plantations, and I know that this has been an issue of concern to many in this House. We have paid out significant sums to many whose plantations have been affected by this devastating disease, but I am still very aware of the difficulties faced by the owners of ash plantations. That is why we will actively look at the scheme again in the new year to see what possibilities there are to take account of concerns expressed.

This is a hugely exciting time for our forestry sector. Only yesterday I spoke at a conference in Avondale in County Wicklow about building with wood, and it re-emphasised in my mind not only the huge potential of wood as a sustainable building material, but the environmental imperative to transition to the widespread use of timber in construction as a low carbon option.

We have an enormous opportunity to achieve something of lasting significance for generations to come with the new forest strategy and the new forestry programme. The Government has put the funds in place to achieve this and we now need everyone across the sector to come together to promote the benefits of forestry for climate, nature, water quality, wood production, people, the wider economy and rural communities. I hope the members of this House will help us in this endeavour.

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