From: Andy Wilson, Sustainability Institute, Corrig, Sandyhill, Westport, Co. Mayo
Communications should be addressed to Andy Wilson.
email:
phone 087 6714075
Date: 30/03/10
Preliminary Forestry Review Submission Paper to Department of Agriculture, Republic of Ireland
1.0 Introduction
This short paper is intended as a preliminary submission on sustainable forestry in Ireland. A detailed assessment of the potential national forestry resource is currently being undertaken by the Sustainability Institute. This assessment will be completed towards the end of 2010. A number of the pertinent criteria underwriting the overall assessment are detailed below. Please note that time constraints prevent more detailed analysis in this preliminary submission. However, feedback would be most welcome. We ask that those reading this document also to take the time to read the referenced documents. This will provide further context.
2.0 Overview
Ireland has approximately 1,500,000 ha of land suitable for sustainable forestry and perhaps a further 500,000 ha of wet areas appropriate for the regeneration of native woodland. This area largely excludes land in SACs or NHAs, though it may be argued that some of this land (notably that on which deciduous woodland was present at any time in the last 500 years) is also suitable for native woodland, either from reforestation programmes or from natural regeneration, for use as a carbon sink.
In this context, the term forestry is used to refer to managed plantations, included coppicing systems, while woodland refers to largely unmanaged stands of native trees, possibly containing some low proportion of exotic species where these are already present. The term sustainable, when used in conjunction with forestry, refers to management regimes that have clear net environmental, social, and local economic benefits, including carbon sequestration, that also do not compromise the ability of future generation to meet their own specific needs, or limit future biodiversity.
The total amount of native woodland or deciduous plantations in the Republic of Ireland currently stands at about 100,000 ha. This figure is up from the all-time low of 30-40,000 ha reached in the early part of the Twentieth century, but still represents one of the lowest proportions of land in deciduous trees in Europe. The only worse cases are Malta and Iceland.
There are currently approximately 500,000 ha of plantation conifers, mostly planted on peat lands, including bog. The low purchase price and/or grazing value of peat lands have made them an attractive choice for coniferous forestry when compared to other agricultural land. Also, annual yields from conifers grown on wet land can significantly exceed the yields from similar trees grown on drier ground. These higher yields are contingent on liberal applications of artificial fertilisers. Some conifers, notably the Sitka spruce, grow especially fast on bog. A comparison in any builder's providers' of sawn timber from Irish and Scandinavian sources quickly reveals the much wider-spaced growth rings in the former. However, as any time-served carpenter knows, the slower grown timber is by far the more durable and dependable product.
The Irish coniferous plantations are known to have considerable environmental impacts, notably the release of greenhouse gasses and the run off of nutrients and particulate matter during planting and felling operations. Although no definitive study has ever been undertaken in Ireland, the presumption is that coniferous plantations, under the management regimes employed in Ireland, are significant net greenhouse gas emitters. Globally, commercial forestry operations are responsible for 17-18 percent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.
The financial benefits from planting coniferous plantations have come mainly from the sale of fast-grown low-grade timber for pulpwood or pallet wood, with a lesser quantity used for construction timber. An additional benefit may have come from the afforestation grants and annual payments, which in some circumstances may have exceeded the total spend on a given afforestation project.
As we now know, the principal markets for these coniferous products have collapsed over the last two years, resulting in considerable stockpiling of harvested but unsaleable logs. The only markets to show any resilience have been in wood chips and logs for fuel. Currently, both these markets are very small, and are constrained by many factors including the relative costs of other fuels and the difficulties of accessing markets.
Currently, the forestry sector contributes very little to Ireland's economy. Indeed, it is likely that the State forestry company Coillte is either already loss making, or will become so in the very near future. In employment terms, forestry is of very minor significance.
In spite of these prevailing very poor circumstances, the establishment of genuinely sustainable woodland and forestry, is well within the capability of Ireland, and would bring massive benefits to the environment, to local and national economies, and on a wider societal level.
Taking annual yields to be a fairly conservative 6 tonnes per ha (this is the weight when air-dried to 20 percent moisture content - harvested weight would be around 12 tonnes @ 60 percent moisture) the envisaged 1,500,000 ha would annually provide up to 9,000,000 tonnes of fuel wood with an energy value of 35 TWh - almost the equivalent of the entire energy spend in domestic heating in Ireland (37 TWh) at the present time (SEI Energy in Ireland 2009).
Only a portion of the envisaged fuel harvest would actually be used for domestic heating (burnt mainly as logs in solid fuel stoves or wood gasifiers), with the remainder used in industrial scale gasifiers or chip boilers, or in CHP plants for the generation of electricity and provision of district heating. In all likelihood, not all the potential harvest would be used for fuel as some may serve other markets. Also some trees should be allowed to grow on to maturity. It is acknowledged that the harvesting and distribution of the wood will require some energy inputs in the form of vehicle fuels - this may amount to the equivalent of 15-25 percent of the gross energy yield, depending on distance travelled.
Critics of this proposal, who argue that wood is uneconomic as a fuel, fail to take into consideration the bigger picture, which is that global oil production has peaked or will peak in the very near future. This will lead to a catastrophic decline in the availability of oil on global markets. This decline invariably will also impact on other energy streams, given the high dependency on oil for transport and transport infrastructures, extraction of raw materials, and industrial processes.
Ireland, as a small nation with no economic or military muscle, with limited options for trade, and situated at the very end of global supply chains, will be in an unenviable position of scavenging for scraps on world markets. Wood will quickly become economical as a fuel when it is the only game in town. Also, a significant proportion of the total harvest could be produced by cooperatives or collectives paying wages either partly or entirely in fuel. Energy from biomass may be the determining factor in whether Ireland can maintain any sort of industrial base in the post-oil era.
Unfortunately, it takes two to three decades to develop new sustainable forestry for fuel production. It is extremely unlikely that a global fuel crisis will successfully be averted for more than 6 or 7 years, though possibly the situation will not become critical for a little longer. Either way, Ireland is staring at a massive shortfall in energy by the early years of the next decade. As economic growth or contraction is very closely correlated with availability of energy, with this shortfall of energy will occur simultaneously to very difficult economic circumstances.
It is vital therefore, both from an energy and economic perspective, that Ireland begins this task of planting its deciduous forests immediately. This will require a scale of mobilisation somewhat greater than national efforts aimed at food security during WW2. However, the difference is that WW2 was expected to end sooner or later, while fossil fuel depletion is permanent. The afforestation programme needs to be accomplished while there is still money to finance the project. The planting phase could be expected to cost €12-18 billion - about the same sum of money as is currently sought by Anglo Irish Bank and other Irish corporate banks for the next phase of the bailout by the Irish State. All monies currently earmarked for bank bailouts should immediately be redirected into sustainable forestry and other long term strategic initiatives. Unlike the monies lobbed into the black holes of the insolvent banking institutions, which will never again see the light of day - most of the money spent on sustainable forestry would find its way into local economies or back into state coffers.
The project would create in the region of 200,000 part time and full time jobs.
2.1 Management systems
The management system proposed for the bulk of the sustainable forestry programme is medium term rotation coppicing (sometimes called short rotation forestry). This entails coppicing each plantation on a cycle of 8-25 years (depending on the species of tree grown and the size of end product desired). A plantation on an 8 year cycle would see one eighth of the total area coppiced each year, so that by the time the final eighth was cut, the first portion was ready for coppicing again, and so on.
Some of the plantations would be allowed to grow on into larger trees, with individual trees thinned out as required. No clear felling would take place, and replanting would only be necessary where entire trees have been removed or have died.
For further information on medium term rotation coppicing/short rotation forestry, see 7.4 below.
3.0 Benefits
3.1 Environmental benefits
In a afforestation programme based on medium term rotation coppicing, soil-originating greenhouse gas emissions occur on a significant scale only once, at the time of planting when the soil is disturbed. From then on, there is a continuous net gain of carbon to the soil, as carbon accrues in root tissue, builds up in leaf-generated soil litter, or is accumulated by the growing number of micro-organisms in the soil or in stable non-organic compounds. While some of this carbon would find its way back into the atmosphere relatively quickly, much of it would be locked up for periods running into centuries.
Estimates of the amount of carbon sequestered by deciduous forestry vary by at least one order of magnitude, but a fairly conservative estimate is 2tC/ha/year¹ (representing the equivalent of 7.34 tonnes CO2/ha/yr). Extrapolating up to 1,500,000 ha, this gives a figure of 11,000,000 tonnes of CO2 sequestered per year - equivalent to 20 percent of Ireland's current annual internal CO2 emissions of 56,000,000 tonnes (the internal figure excludes the considerable greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the production of food, fuels and other products used in Ireland but manufactured/grown/produced elsewhere).
The establishment of 500,000 ha of native woodland would lock up considerably more carbon as little harvesting (and subsequent combustion) of timber would take place.
3.2 Other environmental benefits
These are many, but include: reduced flood run-off during extreme rainfall events; reduced greenhouse gas and pollution impacts as a consequence of land being taken out of conventional livestock farming; biodiversity benefits and habitat protection.
3.3 Food production
Sustainable forestry and woodland may also provide a valuable albeit relatively minor role in future food production. This may take the form of low density or seasonal grazing of livestock, or tree crops such as fruit or nuts. Potential crops include apples, pears, plums, cobnuts, walnuts and Spanish chestnuts. Contrary to common perception, all of these crops are potentially viable in the Republic of Ireland, though not necessarily in all parts. The globalisation of markets means most of these crops are economically unviable at present. This will change in the approaching era of reduced availability of oil, and/or high energy prices.
The production of livestock or tree crops within the sphere of sustainable forestry may marginally reduce potential biomass yields.²
3.4 Societal and community benefits
These should not be underestimated. Rural areas in Ireland are currently experiencing rising hardship, falling morale, and a general breakdown of the sense of community. These negative indicators may be interpreted as collateral damage from the Celtic bubble era - an era characterised by a frantic and often mercenary me féin, everyone-for-themselves philosophy. The bursting of this bubble will leave many rural areas facing reduced mobility, failing services and falling employment, economic ruin, and a growing level of desperation. All of these factors can potentially be turned around with a nationwide sustainability-driven afforestation programme.
3.5 Employment
As stated above. An afforestation programme on the scale outlined has the potential to immediately deliver some 200,000 part time and full time jobs. The site preparation, planting, and aftercare of an estimated 8 billion trees (2,000,000 ha at 4000 trees/ha), would provide 5 years work for a labour force of 100,000-150,000 people, plus many additional jobs in related secondary employment. Subsequent maintenance and harvesting work would provide on-going part time employment for up to 400,000 people.
In contrast to the elusive high-tech smart economy (already well on its way to China and India), or a corporate-driven green new deal, neither of which will provide many (if any) actual new jobs in Ireland, sustainable forestry provides a participatory, active, community-led, community-benefiting initiative, with many clear employment opportunities.