It is, I think, common case on both sides of the House that we would all like to see forestry activity prosper and grow. In fact, as long ago as 1907, a committee on Irish forestry said that all the men of experience and expert knowledge were agreed that in soil and climate Ireland, for forestry purposes, was particularly well favoured; on the question of our capacity to grow timber as well as any other country in Northern Europe they stated there could be no doubt whatsoever. Nobody could take issue with that statement and we are anxious that the sentiments expressed then should be translated into action and that we should reap the fruits of that action.
The first essential in putting these pious thoughts into active and fruitful operation is to ensure that staffing within the Forestry Division is adequate. I have some worries about the recruitment of professional staff, graduates in agriculture, specialists in forestry. I understand that each year there are four vacancies in the Division. This norm was set quite a number of years ago before the activities of the Division had expanded to their present size. It could happen that in some years the number of graduates with the requisite qualifications might exceed by one or two, perhaps, the norm and that one or two might have to emigrate since, apart from forestry, there are very few openings here for professional foresters. Having regard to the importance of forestry in our economy, it would be a pity to permit people with the requisite qualifications to emigrate. In this age of sophistication it is essential that the Forestry Division should be staffed as far as possible with men holding professional qualifications. I suggest to the Minister that recruiting policy might now be looked at anew. The Division is expanding into conservation and, to ensure conservation, it is vital that highly qualified and professional experts on this matter should be available. I shall come back to this later.
With regard to unskilled staff, if anybody who works in a forest can be termed unskilled, there is one point I should like to mention. On a wet day when the men are unable to work they have to take shelter in unheated huts. If they go home they lose a day's pay. It is unhealthy that they should have to shelter in such conditions. It should be neither difficult nor expensive to supply a simple boiler which could be fuelled with forest thinnings and waste wood so that the men might enjoy modest comfort in wet weather.
The next logical step to the provision of professional staff is the provision of land. The Minister's statement was vague on this particular matter. He talks of an indication of a general upward trend in land acquisition and he is hopeful that over the next few years real progress will be made towards alleviating the difficulties of our land reserve position. The Minister must concede that our land reserve position is in a critical condition. If we do not have enough land on hands to take full advantage of our forest potential the net cause of that is the bad price paid for land. I concede that the type of land bought for forestry is marginal land, not the sort of land to command any sort of high price. I understand that the Department is limited to a maximum figure of £40 per acre for the best land. This figure is quite unrealistic in this day and age. It means that in the vast majority of cases the price given for land is in the region of £6 to £7 to £10 an acre. That is no attraction to a man who has ten or 20 acres of bog; it is no attraction to him to be offered £60 or £100 for it. The question of an adequate land reserve will not be solved until such time as a more realistic figure is paid for land by the Department of Lands. I also think that it would be an inducement, in view of the comparatively small price the Department have to pay for holdings, if the Department made it invariably a condition of sale that the vendor's costs would be paid. These in relation to the total purchase price are small but in view of the relatively small size of the total purchase price they inhibit free dealing between owners of marginal land and the Department.
The land acquisition procedure will have to be looked at in relation to the prices paid. I understand that a steady annual acquisition of 20,000 to 25,000 acres is needed in order to keep the land reserve at an economic position with regard to forward planning and forward planting. It cannot be and will not be acquired, and past experience has proved this, until a more realistic price per acre is paid by the Department. Up to now the emphasis in regard to land acquisition has been on the purchase of bog or marginal land. A tree is like a crop and the better the land the higher quality crop you will have. The result of buying only marginal land is that the biggest part of our planting consists of evergreens. It is a commercial timber and there is nothing wrong with it but at this stage we should begin to consider a variation in the type of planting and an expansion into other species. For instance, hardwoods—beech and oak—should be planted on a greater scale but to plant these you need better land. Of course, none of us will ever see these trees nearing maturity but for the future we should ensure that there will be an ample covering of deciduous timber. We cannot do that unless we plant now and we cannot plant unless we get land that will grow that type of timber. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to look into the question of improving the quality of the land being bought and increasing the price being paid for it.
The question of grants for private planting will also have to be looked at again. I do not think the Minister mentioned private planting but I should like to point out that the grant, which is £20, was fixed ten, 12 or even a longer number of years ago and having regard to the devaluation of money its real value is considerably less than £20. Its value to the farmers as an incentive is further diminished by the fact that the grant is payable in two sums, £10 on planting and £10 after five years following an inspection to see that the forest is developing in an adequate way. I submit that this would not induce a person with suitable land to go in for private planting. The grant will have to be increased and paid in a more realistic way. Timber is a slow crop and five years is not long to wait but for a small farmer with only a few acres of marginal land it is too long a prospect. At the start of the five years, it looks so long that generally it is a factor that will compel him not to plant. Another matter that might be looked at is the minimum area that has to be planted to qualify for a grant in relation to private planting. At the moment the minimum is one acre, apart from the so-called underdeveloped areas where half an acre will qualify. It is so important to encourage private planting in order to provide timber cover in all parts that the minimum area should be half an acre all over. This might have the effect of encouraging people residing on good land to plant half an acre here and half an acre there of deciduous timber. For generations to come it will mean an immense difference with regard to the visual prospects of our land.
The Department might consider a grant for amenity planting. One can visualise a situation in which a landowner might have small pockets of land that would not come to half an acre in extent but which he would like to plant with trees, evergreens or hardwoods. At the moment there is no grant for this type of amenity planting done privately. I am not speaking now of amenity planting at approaches to towns or villages which is dealt with by local authorities and public-spirited citizens. A farmer who would have suitable mearings should be encouraged to plant them. This would add to the appearance of the countryside. It would encourage wild life and provide shelter. Grants could be made available to encourage hardwood planting and the grant could be on the basis of a grant per tree. This would also entail expert assistance from the Department for any farmer who might be contemplating such planting.
The next point I want to deal with is in regard to planting and felling State forests. The Minister said that markets this year for both sawlogs material and pulpwood have been buoyant. I take it that this means that there is a good market for trees at the moment. He said that sales of sawlogs have increased slightly in the current year and prices have been well maintained. In a buoyant market sales should not have increased only slightly.
There is no reason why sales should not have taken advantage of the market and increased enormously. We have enormous stocks of sufficiently mature timber for sale. Our original plantations are 30 or 40 years old and would be sufficiently mature for commercial sale. I wonder are we face to face with a question of policy in the Department in the sense that there is a deliberate policy to hoard our State forests against a rainy day or a national or worldwide emergency. There must be such a policy otherwise sales would have increased last year. It is a wrong policy to hold commercially mature timber against such an emergency because if we are to have an emergency again it will be an atomic emergency and nobody need bother hoarding anything. The sales of our commercially-mature timber should be increased. Apart from the much needed revenue which such sales would bring to the Exchequer they would also have other effects on the operations of the Department.
Take a forest of 300 acres of com-mercially-mature timber. Such forests are to be found all over the country but some of these are not being touched. There should be a programme of selling, say, 10 per cent per annum of such a forest.
Instead of, perhaps, selling the whole 300 acres, in ten years time there should be gradual selling. This would have a number of advantages. There would be a more staggered cycle of replanting and this in turn would mean that the overall age-distribution of our forests would be varied and there would be a good age-distribution all over the country.
It would have a further very important effect on the question of forest staff. At the moment many of our forests are in areas of high emigration. If the present pattern of emigration in these areas continues one can foresee a situation where there could be a shortage of labour. At the moment too much of the work provided in the forests is on a temporary basis. If these men could get all-the-year-round employment they would stay and there would be staff at all times for our forests. One way of ensuring all-the-year-round work is to carry out in our forests continual felling of small lots of mature trees. It is very important, with an eye to the future, to ensure that in these areas there would be adequate and competent staff to deal with all the activities of our forests. If some plan like this is not devised one can see a situation where men will have to be brought from 25 or 30 miles away, with high transport costs, to work in some of the more remote forests. This plan of felling in small lots on a continual basis would provide permanent work for the men, would provide revenue for forestry and ensure that planting would be on a regular basis.
A further point is that if the felling is gradual the replanting will be gradual and you will not have naked scars up the side of mountains. If we leave some of our 30 to 40 year old forests for another 10 years these will have to be felled in toto and that will have a disastrous effect on the appearance of large areas of our scenic countryside. This should be avoided and can be avoided if there is a change in the policy of the Department. The Minister does not say anything about this but there must be some reason for the present policy. The only reason I can opine is that it is a policy of hoarding our forests for a rainy day. That is wrong policy. The trees should be felled when they are commercially mature, not altogether but in lots.
The Minister referred to a long-term production forecast prepared for the forestry service. I do not know how that was published or to whom it was sent. Perhaps it is a very technical document and only of concern to people in the trade. However, it would be a very interesting document for Deputies to read and I would be disappointed if a document which is obviously of such importance to the forestry service was not readily and easily available and if it is a very technical document, that there would not be a layman's comment available for Deputies.
The Minister has rightly said that conservation is an important aspect of the operations of his Department. He says: "It is too soon to assess the results of Conservation Year but I believe that a significant advance has been made." I would respectfully disagree with the Minister. I would agree with him if the long-promised wild life legislation were before the House but without that legislation no real advance can be made in conservation. We are as we were a number of years ago before there was any publicity on the subject at all. Public opinion is more educated on the subject but I cannot agree when the Minister says a significant advance has been made. It is very disappointing to many dedicated people who are working in voluntary organisations up and down the country on animal protection and on various aspects of wild life conservation that they have not got statutory backing for their efforts.
It is essential that this legislation would be introduced quickly because the pace of pollution is not being checked and cannot be checked until such time as legislation is in being. I use "pollution" in a wide sense and I would include many continental sportsmen coming over to shoot everything that flies. They pollute our countryside and there should be some means, through Bord Fáilte via the Minister for Justice, of informing these gentlemen that a shooting holiday here entitles them to shoot only game birds. This is another reason for the urgent introduction of legislation.
I would remind the Minister that it was as long ago as 7th March, 1970, that he stated at a conference which is referred to in the Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, No. 826:
A detailed outline of comprehensive legislation on wild life conservation was in the course of completion.
Twelve months ago the outline was being completed and I am disappointed that the legislation following that is not available to this House. Next to legislation the most important thing the Department can do under the heading of conservation is to educate the public, adults and children. The caravan that went around the countryside was an excellent idea but its appeal was mainly to children. They are the coming generation. They must be educated and it is a highly commendable thing that efforts have been made in that regard. However, with the increase in the pace of pollution and its danger to our wild life, the education of the adult is equally important and equally urgent. I would urge the conservation section of the Department to plan more courses of education for this coming year that would bring home both to the urban and rural populations of Ireland the value of our great national heritage and what they must do in their individual ways to see that it is not diminished; in fact to see that it is enhanced.
One sometimes is surprised at the lack of knowledge in rural Ireland relating to many aspects of wild life. There is very little real knowledge of birds and their habits, very little knowledge of the fauna of the country. Unfortunately it was a common thing that ring forts were destroyed in the course of land reclamation works purely through lack of knowledge on the part of the landowner that these were prehistoric sites and could contain things of the highest value. The Ardagh Chalice was found in a common field. All of this stems from a lack of knowledge. One of the most rewarding tasks that the conservation section of the Department could undertake during the coming year would be to devise and implement, as a matter of urgency, a crash programme of education for the Irish people on their wonderful heritage.
As I said at the beginning, development of forestry should be commended and encouraged. In connection with it, an expansion in conservation is equally to be commended and encouraged. It will mean that in the future our forests will have to be considered not merely as places where trees are grown for the provision of timber but in the light of a conserve for wild life, as places to encourage the habitation of rare species and as high class recreational areas, offering a particular type of recreation. They should be used in a restrained manner but this, again, will require education. In developing these places it will be necessary for the Department to employ highly qualified persons to ensure that the ecology of our forests will be studied fully and will be greatly expanded. It will mean the recruitment of suitably qualified scientists who will have to take advantage of the experiences of their colleagues in other lands. It was people like these I had in mind when, in my opening remarks, I referred to the need for other types of professional staff. These suitably qualified scientists are necessary if we are to ensure that what we have here in terms of wild life will not be disturbed and that it will be increased and expanded.
I do not think we realise the potential paradise we have here. We have a tremendous variety of scenery, lots of open country and clear skies as well as a great variety of wild life. If conservation were dealt with in a very serious way, this country of ours could be the most desirable place in Europe in which to live. To put that on a base commercial level, it could become a paradise where Europeans would spend their holidays. I would urge that conservation would have an urgency about it and that, above all, the outstanding legislation would be introduced immediately.
The opening of the forests to the public during the past year must be commended and encouraged. People should be encouraged to visit the forests and to take part in walks. So far as I know, only one day for forest walks was arranged last year on a national basis but I would hope that during the coming summer arrangements would be made to have more of these. The more people go through the forests and listen to knowledgeable men talk about the wild life there, the more respect there will be for our natural resources generally.
The Forestry Division of the Department must be a very attractive place in which to work. I am sure it has its drawbacks like anywhere else but because the potential it has for doing good is such an exciting prospect, together with the goodwill it has from this House and from the public there can be no excuse for failing to do a good job.
