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The wrong kind of trees: Ireland's afforestation meets resistance
- harimau777 7y agoIt seems to me that it would be wise for legislation that provides tax breaks for reforestation to require native trees and/or diverse trees.
- FerretFred 7y agoThat would make sense, but I'll bet the native/diverse trees grow too slowly to make enough money in a short space of time.
- barking 7y agoyes they're a longer term investment, it would be interesting to know how the relative present values compare. Even if the deciduous ones have a lower PV then the nicer environment they provide should also be considered, ie somewhere wildlife can thrive.
- I_complete_me 7y agoIn most of the poor land that is currently afforested Coillte have planted Lodgepole Pine and Sitka Spruce because no other trees could grow commercially. These trees do not harbour much wildlife and they are generally unsuitable for walking through, unlike forests of oak and beech which I believe would be better for animals and humans alike. Therefore I agree with you.
- antupis 7y agoHave you ever been an old spruce forest you can definitely walk thought it eg https://johnbarger.photoshelter.com/image/I0000eZaLJgCgJHg https://johnbarger.photoshelter.com/image/I0000eZaLJgCgJHg .
- arethuza 7y agoI don't know about Ireland - but some commercial forestry here in Scotland look nothing like that - dark, almost no plants at ground level and very unpleasant to walk through. Scotland had a problem with the "wrong kind of forest" when someone thought it would be a good idea to plant non-native tree species on enormous blanket bogs of the 'flow country': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_Country
- patrickk 7y agoSounds similar to Irish forests. The trees are in artificially straight rows, really dark underneath as no natural copse can form. No wildlife to be heard.
- arethuza 7y agoSome examples of natural forests in Scotland - which look nothing like commercial planting: https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/our-pick-scotlands-native-forests/0012621/ https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/our-pick-scotlands-nati...
- Sharlin 7y agoThese plantations in Ireland are not "old spruce forests", they are tree farms. Big difference.
- aksss 7y agoThis has been my reaction to most of the criticisms: give it time. Spruce forests are beautiful and magical places once they are aged. Those rectangular boundaries will smooth out naturally the way flora does. Having grown up in old spruce forest, I would attest that it will be valued greatly in a couple generations. They are great places to play in and really spark the imagination. One issue with reforesting places is that many people just aren't used to what comes with forests - sight lines are obscured and inconvenient animals (some dangerous) tend to take refuge in them. But that's what comes with forest.
- prepend 7y agoI wish the article spent more time on the preferred types of trees other than the Sitka. The Sitka was chosen for its environmental (sucks up lots of carbon, grows well in Ireland) and economical (quickly produces renewable lumber jobs and products). But if there are preferred trees, I would like to know more about their differences from Sitka. Do they grow 10% more slowly? Or product 10% less lumber? Or require 10% more maintenance? I recently visited Ireland and walked through some awesome woods. But the local houndsmaster explained that almost all of the trees are non-native. And that wasn’t a problem. I don’t think non-native is a self-sustaining reason by itself. I’m sure the Leitrim group has more info on what are better trees for Ireland and I would like to see the climate trade off analysis they did to show how other trees should be used.
- Brakenshire 7y agoIt’s foolish to consider such marginal issues for woodland in countries like Ireland. Between modern agriculture and human settlement there is an extremely limited amount of space to maintain ecosystems, and the last thing you want to do is apply the same logic of high intensity agriculture to growing carbon over huge swathes of land. I would not take a 25% greater carbon impact and certainly not a 25% lower maintenance cost if the consequence is creating a green desert for wildlife. This is one reason why we need to act now on the climate, the Paris deal only achieves its relatively gradual 2050 targets by assuming enormous carbon sequestration from the 2040’s onwards, which unless there is a breakthrough will require us to cover an absurdly large amount of land in these kind of dead plantations. To halt the current mass extinction we’ll need to keep climate change within reasonable bounds, but also set aside enough land for ecosystems to be able to support themselves. The earlier we act, the less collateral damage we’ll be forced into to keep temperatures below reasonable levels. A few sensible policies on zero carbon heating or transportation now can mean the space to create national parks rather than massive dead plantations in 15 years.
- pvaldes 7y agoIs not a secret at all Oak, linden, beech or chesnut. Start burning much slower than any resinous, support a high biodiversity of insects and feed mammals and birds If you want something that grows faster: poplar, maple, ash, birches and most willows. Willows are bee lifesavers in early spring. If you really want a pine, use a native species at least. I'm not systematically against using a few Spruce, Cedrus or Sequioa here and there, but if you invest strongly in a monoculture of Spruce you have a high risk to lose all the money of your investors by Cytospora cancer or fire. As I said before, none of this is a secret. There are many solutions more simple and obvious.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoLet me get this right: Ireland was deforested. Now its a big carbon offender. Trees improve that drastically. So they planted trees, lots of trees, 11% of Ireland now covered by trees (up from 1%). But, get this, they're not pleasant to walk through! They're the wrong color. They are 'dark and dank'. Hm. Compared to what? The stripped, blasted landscape they replaced? The ecological disaster that was remediated? This seems a trivial, silly article.
- valent1ne 7y agoThe point it seems they're trying to make is not necessarily avoiding planting trees, but to not introduce non-native species of trees. The article mentions the opponent's claims: "acidic needles and smother wildlife", "saying carbon-soaking bogs were damaged", and "diesel-emitting machines often felled trees prematurely" Since the article doesn't reference any studies or statistics to back up either claim, it's hard to tell, but a lot of people here agree that Ireland's environment could benefit hugely from cutting down or outright outlawing the harmful practice of bog cutting, and introducing non-native species to an environment can often be harmful.
- JoeAltmaier 7y agoThey introduced pines, a fast-growing tree that can most rapidly remediate Ireland's contribution to global ecological disaster. Which would seem to upstage concerns about the machines that manage the trees, or that other (insufficient) carbon measures were affected (bogs). Such arguments are a little like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
- marcusverus 7y agoThe issue of pine needle acidity shouldn’t be overlooked. Decomposing pine needles raise the acidity of surrounding soil, which could affect the viability of local flora and, in turn, affect the entire local ecosystem.
- avar 7y agoI haven't hiked in Ireland, but Iceland's even more deforested and this is a sentiment shared by many Icelanders. Of course it's a matter of taste, but in general I'd much prefer to hike through the non-forested parts of "blasted landscape". You can see where you're going, you're free to pick any arbitrary route without being blocked by trees & foliage. Hiking in heavily forested places in Scandinavia can seem like a long tour through a tunnel by comparison.
- shakyshakyshaky 7y agoIt seems to me that planting historically native trees would be best for preserving cultural landscapes and identity. Ireland is absolutely beautiful, but the sheer breadth of deforested rocky landscape now being used for sheep pastures is depressing.
- cf141q5325 7y agoSure if you are willing to invest that much into preserving the cultural landscape and identity. The trees planted there are chosen to be as economically viable as possible. Without that aspect the program might not get implemented.
- scandox 7y agoJust to be clear to everybody who hasn't walked through one of these "forests": five minutes is enough to know that these are literally dead zones. In addition the company that manages all this land and all this planting won't release figures on how much Roundup they're putting in the ground...but a reliable source tells me it has to be measured in units of hundreds of truckloads. And anyone who grows up in the Irish countryside knows the preferred method of a pulling a single weed is to pour a gallon of the stuff on it, rather than lift a hand. So this doesn't have to be about native vs non-native...what's truly important here is that these forests are about as much part of the ecosystem as a lawn that's being sprayed twice a week.
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- rfreytag 7y agoThe article mentions Sweden also cultivates Sitka pines. Having traveled through Sweden I never heard a sound in their forests; no bird song at all.
- adminu 7y agoIs Roundup used for all of the trees' lifetimes or only in the first (maybe second) year in order to prevent it from being overgrown? My father now owns a little bit of forrest and after new trees had been planted the effort for keeping them growing and not dying under tons of weed is non-trivial. As soon as the trees are big enough the issue becomes a non-issue, of course.
- ralusek 7y agoI know that this is a serious article, but there's something very funny about something that is: a.) combatting climate change effectively b.) generating wealth and c.) creating a degree of variety and beauty being shot down because a bunch of Irishmen think the forests are spooky and depressing. If my googling of these forests is accurate, they're actually pleasant looking forests.
- Sharlin 7y agoThey're not forests. They are monocultural tree farms. Better than nothing, assuming the harvested carbon is used sustainably, but they're nothing like a natural forest, spruce or not.
- SiempreViernes 7y agoClaiming tree planting is a effective strategy for Ireland is just hogwash! Tree planting is primarily about managing the current carbon excess, of course it does noting to reduce our excessive emissions. It seems Ireland in particular is especially bad at actually combatting emissions, so the tree planting is supposed to provide the fig leaf to hide behind; funny that they go with spruce. But yeah, looks like pretty bog standard spruce forest, though it seems these are actually tree plantations and not forests.
- ploika 7y ago> a bunch of Irishmen think the forests are spooky Watch those snide remarks please. The people who live near these plantations want forestry to be done right.
- jqgatsby 7y agoI agree with you 100%, ralusek. This sounds like a particularly infantile form of nimbyism to me. Apologies to the folks living there that the forests suck, but with the fate of the planet at stake you get very little of my sympathy. Yes, in the long run, let's plant something more pleasant, but we are dealing with an immediate climate crisis and your concern about the view and local walkability are just not important compared to that. If these shitty trees do the best job of quickly soaking up carbon, then that's what should be planted. It's not about you.
- dharma1 7y agoReforestation is clearly great, but it feels like we are still figuring out better alternatives to monoculture tree farming and clear cutting
- mikorym 7y agoThis topic is relevant in South Africa as well. More than 100 years ago, many of the indigenous forest were deforested to make way for pine and eucalyptus plantations. The former is less than ideal, but the latter is even worse. The water use issue of eucalyptus far outweighs its carbon sequestration and the other problem is that after its cycle of 7 to 25 years (depending on use) a lot of that carbon ends up in the atmosphere anyway, for instance through burning for silicon mining. The other important factor is the plant matter that composes the top soil and how this decomposes or otherwise interacts with the soil. A major part of CO2 release is through decomposition of plant matter. In fact, the recent article [1] that I read (on HN?) made me realise that a plant can be carbon neutral (rather than carbon negative). In the article, there is actually no difference between having a plant in that bottle or just having charcoal in the bottle—it's a completely closed system. This invites a question about afforestation and how important carbon capture via plantation is vs. re-establishing indigenous forest and on the other hand simply subterranean C02 sequestration. [1]
- icebraining 7y agoPortugal has the same problem with the eucalyptus[1]; it's a dreadful choice for a dry country like ours. There was brave popular resistance[2], but it wasn't enough. [1] https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/michaela-mcguire/eucalypt-invasion-portugal https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/mic... [2] https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/portugal-28-years-ago-a-village-fought-against-eucalyptus-the-land-never-burned-again/ https://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/p...
- mikorym 7y agoA viable alternative (if you don't have qualms with this instead) is avocado farming. Depending on climate (i.e., such as colder regions) the net water use can actually be similar (or say 2:1) when switching from eucalyptus to avocados; there still needs to be some amount of research done on this. EDIT: To be clear, in warmer microclimates the irrigation is more water intensive because your loss of water due to irrigation is high. Some advances such as drip irrigation can mitigate this, and in theory things like mulching and super absorbent materials can get the water use down even further.
- barking 7y agoOne of the most common native trees in Ireland the Ash tree is shortly due to be hit hard by the Ash dieback fungal pathogen. The Horse Chestnut (non native but in place for several hundred years at lease and beautiful) is under threat too I believe. This coming not so long after the catastrophe that the Elm tree population suffered with Dutch Elm disease The sitka spruce forests are an abomination, nothing grows in them except sitka spruce, not even grass. They are also planted in rectangles that look jarring to the eye on hillsides, nothing natural looking about them at all.
- tomohawk 7y agoIreland was deforested by the British, who needed wood for ships and wood to burn (industrial revolution before coal). It was also deforested in an attempt to quell the Irish attempts at independence. With no forests to hide in, it's harder to fight against an army. Prior to this, Ireland was heavily forested. With no wood, Irish began to burn peat (their own soil) for heat and cooking. Eventually there was famine and a mass exodus. The soil is now markedly different, and requires trees that can tolerate the ph.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoIreland was mostly defeorested before the British even arrived. Though having arrived they did indeed make it worse.
- dalbasal 7y agoThat depends on who/what you consider "British" and what you consider "arrival." Is it the first time Viking/Germanic/scandi lowlanders permanently migrated, the first time normans take control of those settlements or the first time "English" lords displaced Gaelic speaking ones outside of cities and trade centres. Not sure strongbow was (a) British or (b) responsible for land use outside of his east coast enclaves.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoWell I don't consider the Norman invaders of Britain and Ireland either British or English (or Irish!). That necessarily comes later. It took 300 years for the ruling class to even share the same language, sticking to Norman French.... English were the subjugated who were tending the field and cow for producing the ruler's french beef (bœuf). They still thought themselves French until the wars of succession. Danish adventures don't really count either, even with the Danelaw in parts of Britain. So we have to get to the time of the early English adventures around the 1600s for it to make a lot of sense, though it certainly does before British being a concept with the Scottish Act of Union uniting Britain. TL;DR it's complicated. :)
- Anthony-G 7y agoThe Sitka spruce problem has been an ongoing issue for at least the past 30 years (probably longer). The main problem is the acidification of the soil, resulting in a barren carpet of dead needles on the forest floor and a vastly diminished ecosystem. There’s a world of difference between a native deciduous forest and one of Coillte’s plantations. One of the most publicised hiking routes in Ireland, the Wicklow Way covers some beautiful countryside but a large proportion of it is marred by long, monotonous treks through fire-roads in between lines of Sitka. Coillte have a remit for recreational use of Ireland’s woodlands but historically, they have always prioritised the commercial aspect over all other considerations. For a private enterprise, this would make sense as the income from tourism doesn’t appear on their balance sheets – but having a broader mission is one of the reasons why Coillte are a semi-state company.
- aurizon 7y agoIt is more important that large volumes of biomass be grown to soak up CO2 than it is to build the idyllic fairey glens of old. The countries with air forces should think seriously about destroying thermal coal/oil/gas plants all over the globe that make electricity. Going forward we will need nuclear(preferably thorium based) or fusion(if we ever figure it out?) along with solar/wind/wave to save humanities collective ass The stupidity of that new coal mine in Australia.....
- dalbasal 7y agoI agree... It about the wider approach. Wilderness is simply a concept that doesn't quite exist in Ireland. We didn't have any of it, and the closest equivalent, forestry, dates to earlier 20th century land reforms. Effectively forestry is agriculture, not wilderness.. in terms of the ideal. Even agriculture has ecological standards, but preserving hedges for wildlife is not the same as preserving an arboreal ecosystems. I would absolutely love to see as much forestry land as possible converted (conceptually) to "wilderness." That doesn't mean it can't produce wood pulp or other commercial products. But, it does mean that wood pulp is not the goal. Native species are the goal. Recreation is the goal. ..And the long term future is the goal. Some of the spruce & pine patches dotted around the country have occasional hardwood "groves." Walking in from the dark & inaccessible pack of spruce into the the magical space created by as few as a dozen matures oaks and chestnuts... you can almost imagine the Ireland of fairy stories and legends. An acre of oak feels like a place, something that should have a name and a story. Those don't happen on short term timescales, but we can and should plant them as a gift to our grandchildren. We need a paradigm shift. Some of this island should be dedicated to non-agricultural use... and timber mono-cropping doesn't count. It should be accessible to us. I would love for us to adopt Scottish "rambling rights," at least for forestry land). It should probably be not-for-profit, reinvesting any income into improvements and land acquisition. *Personal: my Grandfather grew up on land that was "agriculturally unproductive." The land was acquired by the state for forestry in the early 50s and the people encouraged to migrate. That's the origin of much/most forestry land. It belongs to the public, morally (and technically, mostly). We are wealthy enough as a nation that we can afford to use some of our least productive ($-p-acre) land for recreational, ecological and spiritual purposes. Planting an oak grove is spiritual, imo, especially in ireland. Timber plantations are not that.
- jonpo 7y ago"magical space created by as few as a dozen mature oaks..." Absolutely this! I can tell right there you understand the magic of trees. Imagine the magic of a whole Island full of Atlantic Oakwood Rainforests.
- gdubs 7y agoSo, monoculture or not these trees are going to sequester carbon. Preserving natural forests is ideal, but these are areas that weren’t forested before this project. Obviously if they’re cleared and / or burned, a lot of that carbon will go back into the atmosphere. Therefore, creating systems people will be happy maintaining and living with for centuries isn’t a superficial concern. For an idea of what that might look like, think of the olive tree agroforestry hillsides of Italy that have existed for centuries. The tropical “homegarden” — similar to the permaculture idea of a “food forest” — shows enormous promise for high annual and lifetime carbon sequestration potential. They can be beautiful, productive systems that have the added benefit of producing food and sustenance.
- mmaurizi 7y agoI would assume the intention is to clear them once they mature - you get the most carbon sequestration if you cut the trees down once they mature and use them to build things and then replant. Obviously burning is counterproductive, but once you turn the trees into houses the carbon will be out of the atmosphere for a very long time.
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- blunte 7y agoTrees are great, but when it is timber and other _avoid-carbon-tax_ interests driving it, you can be sure it’s being done with the priority of corporate profit rather than environment. And generally speaking, it is safe to assume that mass monoculture systems are flawed, even if it takes 50 years for us to prove and illustrate those flaws.
- adminu 7y agoOn the other hand, it is great I think, when economic interests produce mass planting of trees. It is not realistic to assume, that we will let agricultural land become wasteland for the nature to recapture it. It is the same principle with the hunting of e.g. rhinos. Licenses for killing rhinos are given out for money (sometimes quite a lot) and that money is put into sustaining the population. Without that economic incentive, poachers will kill the animals, but nobody will try to sustain them.
- blunte 7y agoPortgual is an example of why this is a bad idea. The timber industry introduced and mass planted eucalyptus trees in that country many years ago, and those invasive, rapidly growing, highly flammable trees have become a huge problem. Huge forest fires are common and deadly to humans (60 killed in one fire in 2017). Had these been native and diverse trees, the fires would not spread as far and as rapidly as they do now.
- jonpo 7y agowe have a once in a millenium chance to rebalance our landscapes and ecosystems towards biodiversity. A spruce monocrop wont help.
- RocketSyntax 7y agoI can attest from Glendalough that these trees grow extremely close together.