Storm Éowyn delivers double whammy of costs to forestry owners

Trees knocked by record winds are not the only way that storm Éowyn will cost forest owners, a leading forest industry CEO has warned.

Not only have forest owners lost the continued growth of the windblown trees, but they will also be hit by higher harvesting costs, and potentially lower timber prices, according to Enda Keane, CEO of Treemetrics Ltd.

“Another 24 to 48 hours will really tell whether the damage is catastrophic or less so, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to say there is a lot of forest damage, a lot of timber down,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“People I’ve spoken to are only getting out to assess the damage now, because roads were blocked, but Galway, Mayo Roscommon seem to be worst hit,” Keane said. “There is significant damage to forests.”

The plantations most vulnerable to wind damage are typically thinned forests, and the damage is worse where the plantations are on wet soil, those with poor drainage, and those exposed to the west and southwest.

“The European satellite was over Ireland on Friday during a cloud-free period so that should tell us more about the extent of the damage,” he said.

The Treemetrics boss sympathised with forest owners, who he said will likely see timber prices pulled by timber mills as a result of the plethora of fallen trees available for processing.

“Spruce [that has been blown down] will be fine [to harvest] for six to eight months but some have been snapped in half, which means they have lost the length of logs.

“The majority of timber is used for roofs, we need long logs for rafters for roofs,” he explained. “Those snapped trees will go for pallets and pulp instead, so you lose half to 75% of the value.”

Harvesting fallen trees will become more difficult and more dangerous, and therefore more expensive.

Compensation scheme

“Coillte is a large company, it can absorb this but private forest owners won’t,” he said. “It will be a very stressful few weeks for those people as they see what storm damage is done. They will be waiting to see what will happen, whether there will be a compensation scheme.”

“Michael Healy-Rae will have a quick baptism of fire,” Keane predicted.

While Keane said the full scale of destruction will only become clear in the coming days, the initial signs are troubling and show that more thought and planning needs to go into the impact of climate change in Ireland on forestry and farming.

“Farmers and forest owners need to be looking at the climate models and see the potential changes that are coming at them in the next five to 10 years,” he urged.

“There will be more frequent catastrophic storms, more drought.”

Climate adapatation

Keane said forest owners will need to adapt their management of forests, potentially looking at no thinning of crops at all, better drainage and maintenance of drainage to ensure better rooting of trees.

“[Moving away from thinning] would be a big strategic change because they would be losing income,” he said.

Read more on the fallout from storm Éowyn on farmersjournal.ie and in the next print edition.