The future role of forestry in the areas of job diversification for farmers, employment in rural areas, product development as well as the social potential of forestry are set out in the strategy for the sector, entitled, Growing for the Future, which was approved by Government and published in 1996. The strategy which covers the period 1996 to 2030 recognises the contribution which forestry, being a rural based activity with little, if any, imported inputs, makes in the areas referred to by the Deputy.
The role of forestry as a carbon sink is recognised by Government in Ireland's national climate change strategy, published in 2000. The strategy outlines the significant contributions in terms both of carbon sequestration and biomass that forestry will make in meeting Ireland's requirement under the Kyoto Protocol. COFORD, the forest research agency, has estimated that forestry can account for 16.4% of the required reduction in greenhouse gases under the national climate change strategy.
The current social partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress, contains, inter alia, a commitment to review the 1996 forest strategy.
The House should be aware of the high historic and future cost of forestry, if existing policies are to be maintained. For example, €613 million, or an average of about €88 million per annum, has been spent on forestry since 1997 and, if existing policies were to continue, annual average costs, assuming respectively 10,000 and 20,000 hectares per annum, would be €100 million per annum and €130 million per annum over the next three years. Indeed, by 2020 the annual costs of meeting the sustaining progress targets of 20,000 hectares per annum could be over €210 million per annum.
