Micheál Martin: 'It will create tensions', but State should buy more land for forestry and rewilding

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he is passionately committed to the biodiversity agenda. Photo: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ciaran Moran Twitter Email

January 24 2023 02:30 AM

The State should buy more land for forestry and rewilding, Tánaiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said.

Responding to questions on Coillte’s decision to link up with an investment fund to purchase €200m worth of new and existing forestry land, he said his view was that subject to State aid rules, in terms of forestry, he would want the land to be in State ownership.

“Farmers are individual private operators as well,” he said. “We want farmers to drive the bulk of the afforestation, so we must be careful about the utilisation of the terms ‘private’ and ‘public’. There can be no selling off of any State forests or anything like that.

“I think the State itself should be more actively involved in purchasing land too. That will create tensions in terms of pricing and other such issues, but we must purchase land for native woodlands and for simple rewilding at its most basic because the biodiversity challenge is so crucial.

"We are not at the races in respect of meeting the biodiversity challenge just yet,” he said.

The Tánaiste said he is very passionately committed to the biodiversity agenda and has been asking agencies to buy land for rewilding and native woodlands.

“We need commercial forestry as well. The construction industry must develop more carbon-efficient mechanisms to build houses in the future. Timber-frame construction is pitifully low in this country in comparison to Scotland, for example,” he said.

“The real issue for us is to get from the low level we are currently at. Significant progress was made in the 1980s and 1990s, but that has stalled in more recent times.”

Inside Coillte’s controversial forestry deal that has sparked uproar in rural Ireland

Commenting on the Coillte deal in recent weeks, the IFA said the main opposition to forestry in recent years had been driven by foreign investors coming in and buying land for forestry. It said this was “distorting the land market” and making it difficult for local farmers, particularly young farmers, to compete.

“With already strong demand in the agricultural land market and limited supply, the new Irish Strategic Forestry Fund is likely to further increase the competition for land, which will result in more farmers being priced out of the market and unable to expand operations to future-proof their businesses.”

The land market in Ireland experienced a bumper year in 2022, a recent Farming Independent land price survey found. It was driven by a combination of the dairy boom, keen non-farming interest in land and strong performances in other farming sectors.

The year saw a 30pc increase in the volume of farmland sold at auction, with a 48pc increase in the amount of money generated and a 13.5pc rise in the average per-acre price.