Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to this historical event, but Ireland was well represented by three people from the  PSI committee: Donal O’Hare, Cathy Fitzgerald and Liam Byrne.

The main part of the event that I really regretted not being there for was to see these two friends receiving well deserved recognition for their part in starting Pro Silva:

Pro Silva Europe founding member Hermann Wobst from Lower Saxony, Germany (left) ,receiving his award from European President Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz from Switzerland at the Slovenian 20th Year Conference

These men have worked in forestry all their lives. In the mid-eighties they and some colleagues took a trip across the border into Slovenia to see for themselves these wonderful, commercial, biologically diverse forests that they had heard about, – and to meet the professor who taught close-to-nature forestry to his students. Out of that memorable visit was born Pro Silva.  To create change in European forestry.  Quite a challenge.

Pro Silva founding member Bela Varga from Hungary, receiving his award from Prof. Jean-Philippe Schutz.

The main emphasis for the organization then was to find ways to work with natural systems in forest management, as they had seen in Slovenia. (Hermann Wobst’s father had been a pioneer of close-to-nature forestry in Lower Saxony)  Their message was heard and Pro Silva has attracted foresters from 27 European countries to date.

But now there is climate change.  A potential crisis of enormous scale for us all. The main message to come out of the conference and workshops in Slovenia was that in terms of forest management, you just can’t get better than what Pro Silva members are doing. It ticks all the boxes more than any other approach.  They got it right. But that now their message urgently needs to go out beyond foresters and into a much wider audience, including politicians, policy makers, the media, etc.

I think until these recent floods in Ireland, the worst on record, most of us were content to imagine that climate change was just an interesting theory.  There are still many people here who say this kind of thing happens all the time. But the predictions are that Ireland will get wetter and warmer.

The Cabin Woods on my farm under water during the floods.

I went canoeing out over the lake during the high waters.  Luckily the Cabin just managed to escape damage.  Our house is up on a hill, as are the cattle sheds and we were very lucky not to be effected by the flooding.

From out in the canoe, the Cabin came this close to being flooded.

But the most heart warming site I saw was in the following photo.  I was out in the canoe, paddling around in my woodlands and noticing as much as I could take in of the astonishing scene with SO MUCH WATER.  And here I saw signs of nature trying to help the situation and showing us the way:

Thousands of alder seeds float on the flood waters, trying to reach higher ground and give support to the new levels of the waters edge.

I had my little iTouch with me on which I store some photos. I showed him this photo first:

This is a big part of how forestry is done here in Ireland, and it is a part that no one likes. Clearfell, - when the entire forest is cut down to get at the timber.

I spoke about the process involved in getting a forest to this stage: The seed collection; the propagation of the seeds; the lining out of the seedlings; the digging up and bagging of the saplings; the transportation to the site; the site preparation; the planting of the trees; the (sometimes) thinning; the waiting, usually about 40 years and then the cutting down of the whole lot. I told him, “Think agriculture, only long term.”

Then I showed him this photo:

Plantation in Austria being transformed into permanent forest using close-to-nature management.

I pointed out the tall, straight trees in this photo, explaining that these were the trees remaining from the original plantation, and asked him to think of our own plantations before they’ve been thinned. So here is a similar plantation, only it’s been thinned carefully, and not in straight rows, to let in enough light so that the seeds on the forest floor can germinate and grow up.  I explained that then the foresters job is to manage the light by harvesting just enough of the tall trees, but not too many.  In this way the regenerating trees can grow up evenly and straight, without the need for expensive pruning. I asked him to notice all these small saplings, growing away for free. No expensive planting needed.

I think he got it.  He was a really great listener.  He told me that an old school friend had made a beautiful wooden bowl for him from a tree that had fallen in a forest they used to play in as children.  He told me of the silent disappointment of his own children when he had taken them for an adventure to a forest in Wicklow, only to come upon what looked like a war zone, – a clearfell site. When his children asked him what had happened, he had answered  ”I don’t know.” 

He asked me how come Irish foresters had got it so wrong.  I told him they hadn’t got it wrong.  That they have made a fantastic start by establishing forests where none had grown for centuries.  That now we can build on these brave beginnings by working with these plantations as pioneer forests. I told him “Think silviculture.”

We ended up spending nearly two hours talking forestry and re-honing the original idea that had brought us together.

On the way home I watched the landscape moving away from the window of the train.  Flashes of tall, spindly conifer forests that have long passed their date for thinning.  Swathes of wind thrown trees leaning into the plantation and just generally looking like an ugly mess. And everywhere the fresh green leaves of birch trees, that wonderful pioneer species you see so much of  in the midlands, shooting up in abundance in an attempt to show the humans that nature has an order and that by following that order, beautiful forests can evolve over time, just like they’ve done for many years in other countries. Only of course here, three times faster!

This beautiful forest in Austria has been managed by three generations of the one family, turning out valuable, high quality timber while at the same time providing an enchanting habitat for wildlife and for humans to enjoy.

There are four mature mango trees in the garden of the old weatherboard house that my father rebuilt.  My father passed away five years ago. The house and the trees remain. Mango trees are prolific in their production of the sweet, juicy fruit and when they are heavy with ripe fruit, the fruit bats would often be hidden in the dark leafy branches, eating the delicious fruit.  Often when we walked under the trees at night when the bats were feeding, one would fly out and give a squawk, frightening us as much as we would frighten them. 

Flying foxes, or fruit bats as they are known locally here in Queensland, have a mixed press. I see the bats as wild, free creatures. The nightly spectacle of thousands of them flying out at dusk in a massive colony like a mighty flock of huge birds is quite simply astonishing.  To see thousands of them hanging upside down in the trees in the heat of the afternoon sun is also a sight you’ll never forget.  How they stretch out their leathery wings and fan themselves cool.  The constant squabbling  that goes on as they move and flutter nimbly through the branches looking for the perfect position to settle in for a day of sleep. To see the little ones fastened onto their mother as she feeds, high up in the trees, is such an amazing sight. Once you hear a colony of fruit bats hanging out in a clump of trees, you  will recognize the sound immediately whenever you hear it again.             

The dark blobby mass on the lower branches of these Coastal Cypress Pine are thousands of sleeping bats.There are also a few hanging on the high branches on the top left.

Fruit bats are also highly valued by foresters and greens alike for what they do for the trees. No other creature is able to spread the seeds of the tall rain forest trees in northern Queensland as efficiently as the fruit bats. There are some excellent signs put up near where the colony spend their days by the Fraser Coast Regional Council in an attempt to encourage people to value the bats:

Fruit bats are highly selective feeders. They feed on fruiting rainforest trees and flowering eucalypts.

    

Fruit bats keep the forest healthy

 

Fruit bats can spread 60,000 rainforest tree seeds in one night

After a long and drawn out battle between local people from both sides, the precious little remaining habitat for the bats has been protected. For now.  The main objector to the bats was apparently the person who lives near the colony’s daytime residence, even though the bats were there long before the house was built. The bats are noisy and during the mating season they give off a strong odour.  Not a wise move to build a house right beside a bat colony.  But saving a tiny piece of forest where the bats sleep isn’t saving a habitat.  Unbelievably, there are now apartments being built on the adjoining block of land. 

New apartments being built right beside the bat colony.

 I find it hard coming out here to Hervey Bay. Often very hard. Scenes like the one above are so common. In fact rampant. If the people in the single, old house have a problem with the noise of the bats, won’t it be the same for the new residents in these new apartments being built? Who do you think will win the battle when there are a dozen or so families living beside the bats? – The human residents or the flying fox residents? I suppose the big difference is that the residents vote, – but the flying foxes propagate forests and keep the world heritage rain forest on nearby Fraser Island healthy. Which do you think is the most useful?

Until recently I didn’t understand quite how intricately linked the bats are with forest health.  One of the anti arguments is that the bats are killing the trees.  The bats do cause damage to the tree crowns where they sleep, over time.  Very often mature pioneering coastal cypress pine is the one to suffer.  And there it is again: The dense canopy of the pioneer forest is opened and the next succession of tree life begins on the forest floor. How is it that these flying foxes know the forests secrets and assist in the plan, and we just don’t get it. We are learning through the effects we are now experiencing of climate change that we depend on forests as much as these wild, free creatures. 

“Man did not weave the web of life – he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

Chief Seattle, 1854.