Ireland will fail to meet its tree planting targets at the current rate, according to a recent report from the Climate Change Advisory Council.
The independent advisory body is urging the government to take urgent action to better incentivise increased tree planting.
According to the Council, the current afforestation policy is “inadequate” and well below targets.
At the current rate, Ireland will fail to meet our future needs as “tree planting rates remain well below the target of 8,000 hectares per year”, the Council warns.
The government has admitted that so far this year it has paid out for the planting of 1,566 hectares, with a further almost 4,500 hectares “approved and not fully planted.”
The government’s current afforestation scheme runs to 2027 and is supposed to increase Ireland’s share of forest from 11 percent to 18 percent.
Marie Donnelly, Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council said that the government was failing to encourage farmers to plant more trees. And recent serious storms had made Ireland’s performance worse.
“What we have seen in the sector is a failure of policy, with schemes to incentivise more planting not delivering the results required.
This has been exacerbated by the damage to forests during the winter with Storms Darragh and Éowyn which resulted in over 26,000 hectares damaged by windthrow”, she said.
“We need a policy from Government that will actively encourage afforestation in the areas most suited to planting. The Council is concerned about plans to plant on deep peatlands, with all evidence suggesting that this leads to significant carbon losses over time. Therefore, it is essential that the current constraints on afforestation on deep peat remain unchanged and are rigorously enforced.”
The government says that its 1.3 billion National Forestry Programme is the “biggest and best-funded” forestry programme to date in Ireland.
“This Forestry Programme offers a very generous package to farmers”, Minister of State with responsibility for Forestry, Michael Healy-Rae, insisted last month.
The government also said that it was EU rules that controlled where trees could be planted.
“Ireland is also guided by our state aid approval letter from the European Commission which stipulates that…the inappropriate afforestation of sensitive habitats such as peat lands and wetlands will be avoided; the carbon balance is neutral or positive – organo-mineral soils with peat depth greater than 30cm are excluded from afforestation; [and that] afforestation of organo-mineral soils with peat depth lower than 30cm is subject is certain safeguards.”
Climate Change Advisory Council said it was important that Ireland’s forestry sector does not become a source of greenhouse gas emissions itself.
The Council said reforestation offers opportunities not only to help combat climate change, but also for new jobs.
There is an “the opportunity for the forestry sector to deliver for Ireland modern methods of construction with the expansion of timber frame construction providing the potential for a strong domestic market for locally produced timber”, the Council added.