General election 2020 (5 Viewers)

[Denny Oubidoux]

My teacher told me that Brits took all our trees for panelling in the houses of parliament.

 

[IFF]

I dunno anything about cattle but and I could be wrong about the rest of this too but I think there is a relatively low entry bar for forestry at present. There might be some red tape to get through but you get free money to cover all of the set up costs. Higher grants for native trees etc. The catch is you have to commit to it long term, like 20 years or something. If you take the money and cut all down to graze cattle in a year or two they'll come looking for the money back. I think you have to pay for maintenance and chopping and stuff yourself but all going well you get plenty of money for the timber.

Yes, the premiums last for 20 years but I think some are sold while still in premium at 15 years, then buy more land, plant it, and cycle begins again

For the planting, you can get a forestry grant to cover the cost of planting. They could also get grants for building forestry road to allow access for lopping and maintenance

Forestry and woodland profits are exempt from income tax, only subject to usc and prsi.
There is also some capital acquisition tax relief on forestry lands. I think on its own the timber can qualify for agricultural relief without doing the farmers test (I. E. 80% of assets in farming assets)

There are also forestry management company that can arrange insurance, maintenance of the forestry lands.

There used to be different forestry premium for someone who met the criteria as a farmer compared to an average person investing in forestry but I think it has been standardised now. Premiums are on a per hectare basis.

 

[Lili Marlene]

My teacher told me that Brits took all our trees for panelling in the houses of parliament.

I did read something recently about the wood being used to build one of the cathedrals in the UK. I mean, it makes sense, what are the colonies for otherwise? Givvus your resources.

For the Love of Peat - 99% Invisible

In an era of constant bad news about the climate crisis, it can be tough to find something to be optimistic about. So in 2019 when articles started circulating declaring that tree planting had “mind-blowing potential” to combat climate change, a lot of people got excited. To be clear, the best...

99percentinvisible.org

That was a good listen, thank you. No stats about Ireland in it though.

 

[magicbastarder]

There might be some red tape to get through but you get free money to cover all of the set up costs. Higher grants for native trees etc. The catch is you have to commit to it long term, like 20 years or something.

a few years back, my BIL was looking at buying a house which came with 14 acres, most of it under commercial forestry. the estate agent spiel was quite detailed on how much the grant aid was worth per year and how much maintenance would cost. it was a 'look the house only has three bedrooms but you'll get X grand a year in grants' sort of spiel.

 

[magicbastarder]

this also applies to britain more so than ireland, but if you want to pick a period in terms of the rate of damage done to natural woodland, the worst times were actually the post war years when woodlands were 'improved' by cutting down unproductive native trees and replacing them with fast growing conifers.

and the brits didn't cut down our trees to build their navy. pressure for wood supply would have been driven a lot by need for pit props, charcoal, and just general land clearance.

random aside, there's a project to try to identify ALEW (ancient and long established woodland) led by a chap who publicised it on twitter. involves picking an area and literally just eyeballing the difference between the 6 inch and the modern OSI maps to try to see what was there in the 1830s that's still there now. previous projects by government agencies focused on i think 5 acres (or hectares?) as a lower limit.
i did donegal in that project, a lot of the middle of donegal took no time at all cos there's shag all there.

 

[magicbastarder]

I think the view of forests as a crop is generally frowned upon by environmentalists despite wood been needed for many industries

one of the issues with growing wood from coniferous stock in ireland is our climate is a little too good. it grows too fast - gappy growth rings means it doesn't have strength except in large stock. some of it goes to the construction industry, but it's grow it fast, sell it cheap stuff. not saying that there's not value in that, but given that coillte own or manage over 7% of the entire landmass of the country, an EBIDTA of €102m (to take 2019 as an example) ain't worth the ecological value of just turning that land to nature. IMHO.

 

[ann post]

i did donegal in that project, a lot of the middle of donegal took no time at all cos there's shag all there.

There's a passage i saw in the annals or somewhere when i worked in teh library that stated that around 11-1200ish in Ireland you could travel from Derry to the Donegal coast limb from limb on the oak trees and the townload names kinda reflect that as you hit the west parts. I wish I could remember the book, i can remember the font like.

Obvs maps are a bit more sourceable especially when those old ones were essentially prospecting for assetts.

 

[magicbastarder]

there's still cnoc na coillte dara up near carndonagh, and some woodlands about halfway between quigley's point and carn on the road between them, but not much else in inishowen. the woods near muff were 'improved' but still maintain some of their original quality i believe.

 

[therealjohnny]

There's a passage i saw in the annals or somewhere when i worked in teh library that stated that around 11-1200ish in Ireland you could travel from Derry to the Donegal coast limb from limb on the oak trees and the townload names kinda reflect that as you hit the west parts. I wish I could remember the book, i can remember the font like.

Just picturing the ancient Irish swinging majestically from tree to tree as they traversed the land. Like apes.

 

[egg_]

Coillte has nothing to do with national parks. The National Parks and Wildlife Service looks after those

Edit: oops, this was in response to an older post

 

[ann post]

Coillte has nothing to do with national parks. The National Parks and Wildlife Service looks after those

PARKLIFE!

 

[Lili Marlene]

one of the issues with growing wood from coniferous stock in ireland is our climate is a little too good. it grows too fast - gappy growth rings means it doesn't have strength except in large stock. some of it goes to the construction industry, but it's grow it fast, sell it cheap stuff. not saying that there's not value in that, but given that coillte own or manage over 7% of the entire landmass of the country, an EBIDTA of €102m (to take 2019 as an example) ain't worth the ecological value of just turning that land to nature. IMHO.

I don't see the correlation between "EBIDTA of €102m" and "Ain't worth the ecological value," can you explain what you mean?

 

[magicbastarder]

if they were making a billion a year off such a large chunk of land, i would more readily accept the argument that this is an important industry. as they're making a smaller amount, i would forgo the money earned in favour of the land being used for ecological reasons rather than commercial reasons. rewilding 7% of the country is worth forfeiting that 100 million a year for, to me.

 

[Lili Marlene]

if they were making a billion a year off such a large chunk of land, i would more readily accept the argument that this is an important industry. as they're making a smaller amount, i would forgo the money earned in favour of the land being used for ecological reasons rather than commercial reasons. rewilding 7% of the country is worth forfeiting that 100 million a year for, to me.

Oh right, so it is worth the ecological value then, just not the financial one. GRAND.

 

[magicbastarder]

others may disagree with me, for certain. and you'd probably make a decent fist of an argument that total turnover should be used, rather than profit, for their value to the irish economy.

 

[Lili Marlene]

others may disagree with me, for certain. and you'd probably make a decent fist of an argument that total turnover should be used, rather than profit, for their value to the irish economy.

Considering how fucked the world is they are valuable indeed

Water futures set to join likes of gold and oil and trade on Wall Street for first time ever

One high-profile investor who might capitalize on the newly launched water future contracts is Michael Burry of "The Big Short."

markets.businessinsider.com

 

[magicbastarder]

i'm surprised sand is not mentioned there. there's another reasonably recent 99pi podcast where they talk about the fact that it's valuable enough now that organised crime have moved in.

 

[Space]

Forestry as an industry or forests for the sake of natural areas and "rewilding" ? I think the view of forests as a crop is generally frowned upon by environmentalists despite wood been needed for many industries. Coillte probably views itself as more of an industry provider than a caretaker of national parks although it's both really. "Ireland destroyed it's forests" hhmmm historically I think some Irish forests were destroyed because they were considered hideouts for rebels or there was large demand for wood after the the fire of 1666 and ship building etc ?

NPWS is the caretaker for national parks but I agree with ya about the lack of distinction between forestry for crops which has very little environmental benefit and forestry or rewilding for maximum environmental benefit.

 

[Squiggle]

Coillte do more ecological damage than good. They are planting non-native species in big single species swathes, they plant them so close together that nothing can grow, or live, under them and they keep them this way when they are thinning. Then they fell them all in one go and often this leads to erosion as the soil, now unprotected, gets washed into the rivers.

Not all forestry is equal, as @magicbastarder was saying. We need to invest time in native, slow growing, species, not just to support the air but also our native flora and fauna.

 

[magicbastarder]

there's a debate to be had too not just about commercial forestry and use of marginal land, but also of the likes of sheep farming in similar circumstances. the average farm income for sheep farming in ireland was €13k in 2018. i must see if i can find a breakdown of how that pans out - are we paying sheep farmers 20k a year, say, for them to lost 7k? or are they earning 10k from the farming, and getting 3k in subsidies?