From Coillte Newsletter, March 2007 : -
COILLTE WESTERN PEATLANDS PROJECT
The Western Peatland Project is reviewing Coillte’s commercial forestry strategy on Western Peatlands Forests (WPFs) along the western seaboard (much of Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo, Donegal). It is now widely accepted among our statutory stakeholders that many WPFs are not suitable for sustainable commercial forestry and that the best management strategy for these areas is to re-design them as environmental forests, so that their potential social, environmental and economic contribution can be optimised in the context of a shared national sustainable land use. This shared land use management approach lies at the heart of the WPF project and it is advocated by all of the statutory stakeholders (including the Forest Service) as the best management strategy for WPFs. The principle output from the project is a state-of-the-art Decision Support System (DSS) that will support forest managers in making both strategic and operations decisions for individual management units in the forest. This DSS will be made available as part of the upcoming review phase of the Forest Management Plans. The DSS will contribute greatly to the drawing up of a national, integrated, sustainable land use programme for current and future forestry development of afforested Western Peatlands. It is necessary to redesign WPFs and facilitate, in association with our statutory stakeholders, a shared land use management approach to WPF’s.
See map
More information on the project is available by contacting Dermot.Tiernan@coillte.ie
Email received from Dermot Tiernan : -
Dear Bob,
Thank you for your contribution and support which is very welcome. As you will appreciate the article that appeared in the Coillte newsletter was very brief and could not include much of the complex detail involved in the Western peatland forest (WPF) project. The background to this project concerns current thinking on forestry on peatlands in the western seaboard. Most of these areas were planted in the 60's and 70's when peatland was not considered as the important and unique habitat it is today. Current national policy is not to grant aid planting these peatlands and this now leaves us with a problem with what to do with the areas already planted. This is where the WPF comes in. The aim of this project is to quantify the issues involved and make recommendations for the future management of these areas. The Forest Service will have the final say on what can be done and subject to funding certain options can then be employed. The main management options in order of preference include,,,,, bog restoration, native woodland, riparian native woodland, reduced cover pine forest, long term retention of current crops and no replanting. Over the coming weeks we will begin negotiating with the forest service to gain acceptance of the direction proposed by the project and more importantly attempt to secure funding so that the work can be carried out on the ground. The issue of funding is critical and Coillte will consider all mutually beneficial proposals for partnership arrangements that allow implementation of the project recommendations. Any support or representations you can make to make this happen would be welcome. If you would like to contact me on any aspect of the project please feel free to call me anytime or if you would like to meet to share ideas and get a better overview of the project I would be happy to oblige. By way of a postscript I include some more points that elaborate on some of the points you raised in your email.
Regards,
Dr Dermot Tiernan,
Coillte Teoranta,
Davitt house,
Castlebar,
Co Mayo,
Ireland.
Phone: (09490)29447
Mobile: (086) 6057106
PS:
1) New native woodland managed for a sustainable eco-system with high biodiversity
The areas concerned in the project are all western peatlands where the environmental and social sensitivities are very high (these are assessed using GIS on datasets from all stakeholders). In general these often occur in areas with no recent history of woodlands (not on OS maps) and invariable these areas have the poorest forestry/woodland development potential where the initial planting decision was political as apposed silvicultural. In these areas it is unlikely that native woodlands would survive and the preferred ecological option is bog restoration. However, on the more fertile peat areas, native woodlands may survive and to cover this possibility we are conducting native woodland trials on western peatlands with a special focus for riparian areas where flush areas offer a realistic potential for the development of this unique type of woodland. A 25 ha native riparian demo trial is currently planted in Nephin (Co Mayo) and similar trials are also been currently carried out in Connemara.
COILLTE WESTERN PEATLANDS PROJECT
The Western Peatland Project is reviewing Coillte’s commercial forestry strategy on Western Peatlands Forests (WPFs) along the western seaboard (much of Cork, Kerry, Clare, Galway, Mayo, Leitrim, Sligo, Donegal). It is now widely accepted among our statutory stakeholders that many WPFs are not suitable for sustainable commercial forestry and that the best management strategy for these areas is to re-design them as environmental forests, so that their potential social, environmental and economic contribution can be optimised in the context of a shared national sustainable land use. This shared land use management approach lies at the heart of the WPF project and it is advocated by all of the statutory stakeholders (including the Forest Service) as the best management strategy for WPFs. The principle output from the project is a state-of-the-art Decision Support System (DSS) that will support forest managers in making both strategic and operations decisions for individual management units in the forest. This DSS will be made available as part of the upcoming review phase of the Forest Management Plans. The DSS will contribute greatly to the drawing up of a national, integrated, sustainable land use programme for current and future forestry development of afforested Western Peatlands. It is necessary to redesign WPFs and facilitate, in association with our statutory stakeholders, a shared land use management approach to WPF’s.
See map
More information on the project is available by contacting Dermot.Tiernan@coillte.ie
Email received from Dermot Tiernan : -
Dear Bob,
Thank you for your contribution and support which is very welcome. As you will appreciate the article that appeared in the Coillte newsletter was very brief and could not include much of the complex detail involved in the Western peatland forest (WPF) project. The background to this project concerns current thinking on forestry on peatlands in the western seaboard. Most of these areas were planted in the 60's and 70's when peatland was not considered as the important and unique habitat it is today. Current national policy is not to grant aid planting these peatlands and this now leaves us with a problem with what to do with the areas already planted. This is where the WPF comes in. The aim of this project is to quantify the issues involved and make recommendations for the future management of these areas. The Forest Service will have the final say on what can be done and subject to funding certain options can then be employed. The main management options in order of preference include,,,,, bog restoration, native woodland, riparian native woodland, reduced cover pine forest, long term retention of current crops and no replanting. Over the coming weeks we will begin negotiating with the forest service to gain acceptance of the direction proposed by the project and more importantly attempt to secure funding so that the work can be carried out on the ground. The issue of funding is critical and Coillte will consider all mutually beneficial proposals for partnership arrangements that allow implementation of the project recommendations. Any support or representations you can make to make this happen would be welcome. If you would like to contact me on any aspect of the project please feel free to call me anytime or if you would like to meet to share ideas and get a better overview of the project I would be happy to oblige. By way of a postscript I include some more points that elaborate on some of the points you raised in your email.
Regards,
Dr Dermot Tiernan,
Coillte Teoranta,
Davitt house,
Castlebar,
Co Mayo,
Ireland.
Phone: (09490)29447
Mobile: (086) 6057106
PS:
1) New native woodland managed for a sustainable eco-system with high biodiversity
The areas concerned in the project are all western peatlands where the environmental and social sensitivities are very high (these are assessed using GIS on datasets from all stakeholders). In general these often occur in areas with no recent history of woodlands (not on OS maps) and invariable these areas have the poorest forestry/woodland development potential where the initial planting decision was political as apposed silvicultural. In these areas it is unlikely that native woodlands would survive and the preferred ecological option is bog restoration. However, on the more fertile peat areas, native woodlands may survive and to cover this possibility we are conducting native woodland trials on western peatlands with a special focus for riparian areas where flush areas offer a realistic potential for the development of this unique type of woodland. A 25 ha native riparian demo trial is currently planted in Nephin (Co Mayo) and similar trials are also been currently carried out in Connemara.
