THE decision by the state owned forestry company Coillte ‘to act as an agent on behalf of foreign and national investment funds’ to acquire 30,000 acres of land for trees, has been condemned by a range of Irish forestry interests.

IFA; the Western Forestry Co-op; the Irish Forest Owners; the Social, Economic and Environmental Forestry Association; the Forest Owners Co-operative Society; the Association of Irish Forestry Consultants; the Agricultural Consultants Association, and the Limerick and Tipperary Woodlands owners have all slated the Coillte decision.

According to the different groups the ‘saddest aspect’ of the sell-out to foreign investors is being paid for by the Irish taxpayer to the tune of €2.1 billion.

That spending of Irish taxpayers’ money has been described by the local forestry organisations as the first step in Coillte’s strategic vision ‘to act as an agent on behalf of foreign and national investment funds’ to transition 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) ‘of our sovereign Irish farmland to establish forests’.

In a statement issued this week by the groups, they also said that the Irish taxpayer will be paying for the sale of rural Ireland to investment funds and added:

“This will not add to the local community or the local economy, and furthermore this will have a negative social impact through rural depopulation by encouraging investment funds to compete for land thus disadvantaging existing local, new entrant and young farmers.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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