Forest owners are now selling more timber from their forests. As they continue to increase log supply, they need to be aware of maximising their revenue through good practice at the harvesting and sales phase by having a proper sales agreement in place.

They also need to plan for forest certification to ensure they have access to the widest possible timber markets.

The Irish Timber Growers Association (ITGA) has updated and revised its template tree sales agreement, which contains best practice and standard procedures in timber harvesting and timber sales. The updated agreement is now available from the ITGA website (www.itga.ie) and is widely employed.

The objective of the template agreement is to assist growers in the thinning, felling, harvesting and timber sale. It is always prudent to use a good contract/agreement and get professional forestry and any relevant legal advice before embarking on a timber sale with related harvesting activity.

Forest owners and buyers can adapt this template to their own particular timber sale and forest. The template agreement is structured under various headings for clarity and ease of use. The terms and conditions are designed to cover a range of potential sale situations and forest types and includes definitions, warranties, payment terms, rights of access, harvesting operational procedures and controls, indemnity and insurance, compliance, risk, health and safety issues, environmental conditions, force majeure and an arbitration clause.

The use of this agreement in timber sales and harvesting is considered best practice and has been approved as certification compliant.

Certification is upon us and we must now put structures in place to facilitate this

It has also been one of the mandatory topics of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine-funded forestry knowledge transfer groups (KTGs) since the rollout of the KTG programme in 2018.

The above are just two areas where information initiatives and co-operation within the sector can assist forest owners in maximising their returns.

Certification

With the exports of conifer logs from Scotland into Ireland having ceased on a precautionary basis, most of which would have been certified, it also important to consider the impact this may have on the availability of certified logs for our processors and how this could affect the prices they can pay to growers.

Over the next two years, the supply of roundwood from private forests is forecast to exceed supply from Coillte. This will have a significant impact on the availability of certified timber for the Irish processing sector.

In order to access our sawn timber and panelboard export markets, processors require their product to be certified to an international certification scheme.

For processed timber to be sold as ‘certified’, at least 70% of a processors roundwood input must be sourced from certified forests.

If processors cannot source sufficient certified roundwood from private forests, they may then not be able to supply their export markets and receive the higher prices for such certified end products, with consequent negative knock-on effects for prices achieved by timber growers.

Certification is upon us and we must now put structures in place to facilitate this.

Given the fragmented nature of private forest ownership in Ireland, group certification is the most cost-effective means for our growers to achieve certification.

The Council for Forest Research and Development, (COFORD) study on private forest certification in Ireland outlined potential next steps towards a national certification scheme for private forest owners, with support from the State and the forest industry.

It’s now more important than ever to ensure co-operation between growers, processors and the wider sector to progress this national group certification scheme and other market initiatives.

Donal Whelan.

  • Donal Whelan is ITGA technical director.