Windblow has major repercussions for forestry sector

The damage caused to forestry plantations by windblow from storms has major repercussions for the forestry and forest products sector as it represents four years’ harvest for private forests alone and 18 months for Coillte production.

In addition to the major damage caused by storm Éowyn, Department of Agriculture data also picked up windblow caused by storm Darragh last December.

Apart from the devastating scale of the damage, the main difference between storm Éowyn and damage caused by previous storms is the magnitude of windblow in private forests, which is estimated at 5.2 m cubic metres or 51.7% of total volume (Table 1).

This compares with 4.89m cubic metres windblow in Coillte forests.

To compound the problem, provisional reports from Northern Ireland estimate the damage at close to 1m cubic metres with the highest concentration of windblow in counties Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry.

Forest owners need support from the Department as well as the recruitment of overseas harvesters

Stakeholders interviewed by the Irish Farmers Journal, including Pat O’Sullivan of the Society of Irish Foresters, believe that the scale of damage now presents “massive logistic and marketing challenges for contractors, sawmills, forestry companies and especially small-scale forest owners”.

“These figures bring home the extent of the damage, especially for farmers,” IFA forestry committee chair, Padraic Stapleton, said.

“Forest owners need support from the Department as well as the recruitment of overseas harvesters to remove the damaged trees which will degrade if left too long in their present state,” he added.

“The Department taskforce needs to immediately provide clarity and leadership to impacted forest owners,” Irish Forest Owners (IFO) chair, Derek McCabe, said.

He agrees with the call for a national windblow strategy.

“Central to this would be the appointment of storm co-ordinators in all counties with major windblow under the leadership of a national manager – or ‘storm general’ as this person was known when Sweden successfully tackled storm Gudrun,” he said.

“Given the enormity of damage to private forests, the next step is to dispel with licences as this places owners without licences at a major disadvantage, when the salvaging operation begins.”

Minister of State with Responsibility for Forestry, Horticulture and Farm Safety Michael Healy-Rae has been praised for ensuring forest owners with thinning licences can transfer these to clearfell status.

“To date, we have clarified that existing clearfelling and thinning licences can be used to deal with windblown situations immediately,” Minister Healy-Rae said, “as well as what needs to be done by forest owners to prioritise their licensing applications where a licence is not already to hand.”

McCabe acknowledges this as a first step but believes it is not enough as based on an average private forest size of 7ha to 10ha, there may be over 1,200 forest owners impacted by the storm.

The taskforce met on Tuesday but there has been no information released on the suspension of licences for forest owners with windblow damage or a plan to source overseas harvesters.