Forestry Plans Shows The Potential Of State Ownership Of Natural Resources
Cathaoirleach Éirígí Brian Leeson has welcomed the announcement that Coilte-owned forests in the Dublin mountains are to be transformed from commercial single-species plantations into mixed-species woodlands for recreational use.
The nine forests in Ticknock, Kilmashogue, Ballyedmonduff, Massy’s Wood, Hell Fire Club, Cruagh, Tibradden, Barnaslingan and Carrickgollogan are already visited by 600,000 people each year.
The Coilte plans will see thousands of acres replanted with a wide variety of native and non-native species over the course of several decades as the existing forests reach maturity and are harvested. Speaking from Ballinteer, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains, Leeson said,
“Future generations will reap the benefits of the visionary plans that were announced by Coilte earlier this week. These nine large woodlands will deliver incalculable social, economic and environmental benefits over decades and potentially centuries to come.
Creating a network of large, bio-diverse woodlands on the outskirts of Dublin City will provide millions of future Dubliners and visitors to the city with a unique setting for walking, running, orienteering, mountain-biking and other outdoor pursuits.
Coilte should oversee the replacement of vast single-species conifer plantations with balanced, multi-species, bio-diverse woodlands.
Private companies that operate on the need to generate profits in the short to medium term simply will not invest in ventures which will take many decades to come to full fruition. In this case we are talking about woodlands that will contain trees the can live for over a thousand years. Planning doesn’t get much more long-term than that.
Only the state has the resources and inclination to plan on these sort of timescales, to invest now for social, economic and environmental benefits that won’t be seen for years or decades into the future. Forestry is a prime example of an area where the state is best placed to develop a natural resource through intelligent, long-term, central planning with the aim of delivering inter-generational social, economic and environmental benefits to local communities and the Nation at large.
Coilte currently controls 7% of all land in the Twenty-Six Counties. It is therefore uniquely placed to shape the future landscape of Ireland, to create mixed woodlands that can deliver not only commercial timber, but also vast bio-diverse reserves that can be used for recreation, tourism and other uses.
The plans for the Dublin Mountains now need to be replicated across the country. Over time, the vast conifer plantations that were planted over recent decades need to be replaced with more balanced woodlands of the type that is planned for these nine Dublin forests.”