Forestry owners still counting cost of storm

More than 60 concerned forestry owners from south Mayo met in the Claremorris Family Resource Centre recently for a presentation of possible outcomes from the damage caused to forests in the area by Storm Éowyn.

Brian Fitzgerald, general manager with Kerry-based Euroforest, who arranged the meeting, said the damage caused by the hurricane-force winds on January 24th last was “on a scale never before seen on the island of Ireland”.

Mr Fitzgerald said the damage was extensive and it seemed likely that the prices paid to growers would fall as a result as there would be a surplus of timber on the market at the one time. He said damaged trees made harvesting more difficult and that there was an insufficient number of harvesting machines in the country to cope with the workload. Harvesting prices would rise, as a result, he predicted.

Forestry owners spoke of the damage caused to their plantations with some trees broken at their trunks, while others were knocked over by other falling trees. 

Mr Fitzgerald warned the attendance of the dangers of entering forests to assess the damage as some trees could still be under tension and break at any minute, causing other trees to fall. He said forests in their current state posed "a considerable and real health and safety risk". Forest owners should deploy drones to film the plantations and evaluate the video afterwards.

Forestry owners expressed frustration at the length of time it takes to obtain a felling license from the Department of Agriculture, with examples of times ranging from six months to five years being quoted.

There was also discontent with the fact that forests must be replanted when cleared, with owners emphatic in their claims that this was not mentioned when they agreed to plant the trees in the first place. The need to obtain a felling license to cut up a tree that had already fallen was also criticised.

Mr Fitzgerald said owners had three options when it came to selling timber.

“The first is to sell the timber standing in the forest,” he said. “It is very difficult to estimate the value of a standing forest because it is hard to quantify the weight of a standing tree, and timber is sold by weight. 

"The second option is to sell the timber at the roadside. This involves harvesting the timber and bringing it through the land to a roadside collection point. 

"The third and best option is to sell the timber delivered to the sawmills.” 

Owners called for a compensation scheme to be introduced to offset the losses they will incur as a result of the storm damage. Many said that this was their pension plan and it had been severely devalued as a result of the storm. They had entered the scheme in the first place on the advice of the government at the time and complied with all the conditions laid down over the years.