While the full extent of damage caused by storm Éowyn is still being quantified, data released by Treemetrics Ltd indicates 11,720ha of forests carrying a volume of 4.1m m3 have been damaged in six badly affected counties. “The preliminary survey covers Galway, Roscommon Cavan, Longford, Leitrim and Sligo,” said Enda Keane who co-founded Treemetrics with Garret Mullooly in 2005.
When asked what the likely damage throughout Ireland might be, he said it was too early to speculate.
“We have yet to assess counties where damage varies, especially Clare, Mayo, Donegal, Monaghan and Westmeath,” he said. Other counties where some damage was also caused will need to be surveyed as there was some windblow during Storm Darragh on December 6-7 last.
Treemetrics utilises satellite imagery and remote sensing technology which it provides to the forestry and forest products sector, in this instance in collaboration with the European Space Agency.
“Treemetrics acknowledges the impact of the storm on private growers, which is why we are more than happy to make mapping analysis free of charge to producer groups and to private growers when they are assessing their windblow,” Keane said.
While the storm damage is great, National Forest Inventory (NFI) data shows that the average annual catastrophic storm damage in recent years amounted to 500,000 m3 (Table 1) during 2013 to 2022 which included Storm Darwin in 2014. Storm Éowyn throws this analysis off kilter, but if it reaches 5.5m m3, it represents less than 4% of the standing forest volume of 142 m m3 in Ireland.
It is worth noting that average harvest in Ireland is much less than the average volume increment (Table 1). While annual harvest was 57% of the increment during 2013-2017, it fell to 41% in the period 2018-2022.
This data shows that future national supply of timber will not be adversely affected by the storm as there is ample room to increase supply to at least 75% of increment. For example, countries such as Sweden harvest over 70% of their volume increment regularly and suffered no loss in production after storm Gudrin blew down 75m m3 in 2005.
An area of damage worth future analysis is endemic windblow. This features as year-round damage throughout Ireland in isolated forest pockets so damaged timber can be removed during normal thinning and clear fells. Nevertheless it represents an annual area of 9,500ha.
Harvesting and marketing
While the average damage to the national forest estate may be low, windblow has major repercussions for annual timber harvesting. Contractors, harvesters, foresters and timber processors can cope with annual windblow of 500,000 m3 as it represents only 11% of the total harvest and it is geographically spread. But if, as expected, it exceeds the forecast harvesting programme of 4.5m m and is more localised, then it places enormous pressure on the sector.
As the storm damaged forests this year are mainly in the west and border counties, harvesting contractors and hauliers will need to rapidly transfer operations to these areas. This has logistic and marketing implications for sawmills, wood-based panel mills and wood energy outlets based in the east and south while standing timber sales are suspended throughout the island.
Taskforce
The early soundings from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) taskforce indicate that storm Éowyn damage is being treated as a national emergency involving a nationwide effort to harvesting and processing the windblow forests as well as the challenge of their restoration, which includes plant supply for reforestation.
It does, however, present a major logistic and marketing challenge as it is a 12 to 18-month intense emergency project.
This will require maximum effort by private forest owners and Coillte, contractors, forestry companies, timber processors and DAFM as the emergency co-ordinator. An orderly processing and marketing programme should be matched by an orderly approach to felling licence approvals.
The Department’s commitment to accelerate felling licences is acknowledged, as is the Minister’s commitment to explore “all options to deal with expediting the licensing process”. However, the early licence assessments – according to DAFM last week, that “some private forestry companies [indicate] that more than 50% of forests that have been damaged have a felling licence”, is debatable in the absence of comprehensive data on the extent of the area damaged.
It is clear that forest owners, the IFA, forestry companies and sawmillers believe that the felling licence requirement should be suspended so that when harvesters are available in a locality, they should not have to pass a forest gate of a windblow crop because the owner hasn’t a felling licence.
This is the only way the sector can “ensure no forest owner is left behind,” as maintained by the Minister. It is how harvesters from 15 countries operated in Sweden after storm Gudrin. There is no point in recruiting harvesters from overseas if there isn’t certitude on felling licences.
While the emphasis is on rapid licensing and removal of timber, DAFM also needs to think long and hard not just about licences but also about its support to forest owners – especially farmers – who have windblown forests. The results of its inaction and lack of leadership after the outbreak of ash dieback almost 13 years ago sucked the remaining life out of a declining afforestation programme.
Early indications are that DAFM’s response this time round has been proactive, but it has been slow to involve sawmills and, at the time of writing, has yet to invite contractors to the taskforce.
Information
There are a number of websites worth contacting for information on windblow including DAFM, Teagasc and the Irish Timber Growers Association.
Members of the North East Forest Group hit hard by storm ÉowynWhile forest owners in the west experienced severe windblow, storm Éowyn, was indiscriminate in its path of destruction as John Sherlock of the North East Forest Group (NEFG) explained at his windblown spruce forest at Gainstown, outside Navan.
This is the second time his forest has been damaged as his infected ash plantation had to be cleared a few years ago.
13 acres of mature forestry owned by Beef farmer Tom O'Brien that was blown down near Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, Co Galway. \ Philip Doyle
“Having an organisation such as NEFG as support has been extremely important at a time like this,” he said as we drove west to Co Cavan, where we met with Derek McCabe, chair of NEWG and the Irish Forest Owners (IFO), who was organising a meeting in the Landmark Hotel, Carrick-on-Shannon for forest owners with windblown forests.
Later, livestock farmer John Maguire and son Ben, a forestry student in South East Technological University, showed us their windblown forest at the family farm in Crover, Mount Nugent.
“We planted 9.2ha, comprising 1.5ha of sycamore and 7.7ha of Sitka spruce in 1992,” John explained to us. He adopted a textbook silvicultural approach as “the forest was thinned in 2009, 2017 and finally 2020,” he said. Clearfell had been scheduled for later this year. Despite the damage, the Maguires still have options, which was stressed by Derek McCabe.
If the forest is harvested this year, the timber should achieve the same price at roadside as a conventional clearfell although the increased harvesting costs will reduce revenue.
While the full extent of damage caused by storm Éowyn is still being quantified, data released by Treemetrics Ltd indicates 11,720ha of forests carrying a volume of 4.1m m3 have been damaged in six badly affected counties. “The preliminary survey covers Galway, Roscommon Cavan, Longford, Leitrim and Sligo,” said Enda Keane who co-founded Treemetrics with Garret Mullooly in 2005.
When asked what the likely damage throughout Ireland might be, he said it was too early to speculate.
“We have yet to assess counties where damage varies, especially Clare, Mayo, Donegal, Monaghan and Westmeath,” he said. Other counties where some damage was also caused will need to be surveyed as there was some windblow during Storm Darragh on December 6-7 last.
Treemetrics utilises satellite imagery and remote sensing technology which it provides to the forestry and forest products sector, in this instance in collaboration with the European Space Agency.
“Treemetrics acknowledges the impact of the storm on private growers, which is why we are more than happy to make mapping analysis free of charge to producer groups and to private growers when they are assessing their windblow,” Keane said.
While the storm damage is great, National Forest Inventory (NFI) data shows that the average annual catastrophic storm damage in recent years amounted to 500,000 m3 (Table 1) during 2013 to 2022 which included Storm Darwin in 2014. Storm Éowyn throws this analysis off kilter, but if it reaches 5.5m m3, it represents less than 4% of the standing forest volume of 142 m m3 in Ireland.
It is worth noting that average harvest in Ireland is much less than the average volume increment (Table 1). While annual harvest was 57% of the increment during 2013-2017, it fell to 41% in the period 2018-2022.
This data shows that future national supply of timber will not be adversely affected by the storm as there is ample room to increase supply to at least 75% of increment. For example, countries such as Sweden harvest over 70% of their volume increment regularly and suffered no loss in production after storm Gudrin blew down 75m m3 in 2005.
An area of damage worth future analysis is endemic windblow. This features as year-round damage throughout Ireland in isolated forest pockets so damaged timber can be removed during normal thinning and clear fells. Nevertheless it represents an annual area of 9,500ha.
Harvesting and marketing
While the average damage to the national forest estate may be low, windblow has major repercussions for annual timber harvesting. Contractors, harvesters, foresters and timber processors can cope with annual windblow of 500,000 m3 as it represents only 11% of the total harvest and it is geographically spread. But if, as expected, it exceeds the forecast harvesting programme of 4.5m m and is more localised, then it places enormous pressure on the sector.
As the storm damaged forests this year are mainly in the west and border counties, harvesting contractors and hauliers will need to rapidly transfer operations to these areas. This has logistic and marketing implications for sawmills, wood-based panel mills and wood energy outlets based in the east and south while standing timber sales are suspended throughout the island.
Taskforce
The early soundings from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) taskforce indicate that storm Éowyn damage is being treated as a national emergency involving a nationwide effort to harvesting and processing the windblow forests as well as the challenge of their restoration, which includes plant supply for reforestation.
It does, however, present a major logistic and marketing challenge as it is a 12 to 18-month intense emergency project.
This will require maximum effort by private forest owners and Coillte, contractors, forestry companies, timber processors and DAFM as the emergency co-ordinator. An orderly processing and marketing programme should be matched by an orderly approach to felling licence approvals.
The Department’s commitment to accelerate felling licences is acknowledged, as is the Minister’s commitment to explore “all options to deal with expediting the licensing process”. However, the early licence assessments – according to DAFM last week, that “some private forestry companies [indicate] that more than 50% of forests that have been damaged have a felling licence”, is debatable in the absence of comprehensive data on the extent of the area damaged.
It is clear that forest owners, the IFA, forestry companies and sawmillers believe that the felling licence requirement should be suspended so that when harvesters are available in a locality, they should not have to pass a forest gate of a windblow crop because the owner hasn’t a felling licence.
This is the only way the sector can “ensure no forest owner is left behind,” as maintained by the Minister. It is how harvesters from 15 countries operated in Sweden after storm Gudrin. There is no point in recruiting harvesters from overseas if there isn’t certitude on felling licences.
While the emphasis is on rapid licensing and removal of timber, DAFM also needs to think long and hard not just about licences but also about its support to forest owners – especially farmers – who have windblown forests. The results of its inaction and lack of leadership after the outbreak of ash dieback almost 13 years ago sucked the remaining life out of a declining afforestation programme.
Early indications are that DAFM’s response this time round has been proactive, but it has been slow to involve sawmills and, at the time of writing, has yet to invite contractors to the taskforce.
Information
There are a number of websites worth contacting for information on windblow including DAFM, Teagasc and the Irish Timber Growers Association.
Members of the North East Forest Group hit hard by storm ÉowynWhile forest owners in the west experienced severe windblow, storm Éowyn, was indiscriminate in its path of destruction as John Sherlock of the North East Forest Group (NEFG) explained at his windblown spruce forest at Gainstown, outside Navan.
This is the second time his forest has been damaged as his infected ash plantation had to be cleared a few years ago.
13 acres of mature forestry owned by Beef farmer Tom O'Brien that was blown down near Ahascragh, Ballinasloe, Co Galway. \ Philip Doyle
“Having an organisation such as NEFG as support has been extremely important at a time like this,” he said as we drove west to Co Cavan, where we met with Derek McCabe, chair of NEWG and the Irish Forest Owners (IFO), who was organising a meeting in the Landmark Hotel, Carrick-on-Shannon for forest owners with windblown forests.
Later, livestock farmer John Maguire and son Ben, a forestry student in South East Technological University, showed us their windblown forest at the family farm in Crover, Mount Nugent.
“We planted 9.2ha, comprising 1.5ha of sycamore and 7.7ha of Sitka spruce in 1992,” John explained to us. He adopted a textbook silvicultural approach as “the forest was thinned in 2009, 2017 and finally 2020,” he said. Clearfell had been scheduled for later this year. Despite the damage, the Maguires still have options, which was stressed by Derek McCabe.
If the forest is harvested this year, the timber should achieve the same price at roadside as a conventional clearfell although the increased harvesting costs will reduce revenue.
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