I was quite taken aback.  I’d always associated the term “desertification”  with virgin, old growth forests in tropical regions of the world.  I’ve seen it in Australia, where I grew up, and I’ve seen it in Malaysia and Thailand many years ago.  I never thought of that term ‘desertification’ applying to conifer plantations in damp old Ireland.  Yet I could see how, in this young lady’s mind, that’s how it appeared. She’s articulate, intelligent and bright.  She’s not an environmentalist or a ‘green’.  She’s not a scientific person. She wouldn’t know that much about forestry, apart form what she sees in her area. But there it was, – her word, her observation.

I thought about her on the way home. The trees were planted and left to grow away, slowly changing the landscape over forty years or so. To someone who grew up in such an area, – that’s what a forest is. And then whamo, just as the trees reach a relatively impressive size,  along come big machines and the rapid process of “desertification” occurs, very often on a large scale. Her landscape is dramatically changed very suddenly and she feels the impact of this “desertification”.  If she chooses to remain living in the area this young lady  will be an elderly lady before she ever sees big trees there again.  Kind of sad, I thought.  Big trees are just so inspiring to be around. The only big trees around Drumshanbo, and indeed most parts of Cavan/Leitrim, are occasional single trees and ones in the hedgerows.  No big trees in the forests.  European foresters reading this post will no doubt also think that a strange concept.

Anyone can see by looking at this image that, done this way, plantations will never become a forest. This is what my young friend meant when she used the term 'desertification'.

If Copenhagen was less than what was aimed for, one thing that stood out above all else was that we must preserve forests.  Not just virgin, tropical forests that are so under threat, – but all forests.  Sequestration of carbon seems to be one powerful way of stemming climate change and forests do that so well.

The main reaction from here, reflected in the media that I read following Copenhagen, was that there was a clammer for the Government to provide more forestry grants; about the re-aforestation grant coming to an end and how will we manage to keep forest land as forest land without it. (Umm, one way seems fairly obvious.)   But the message from Copenhagen wasn’t that ‘forestry’ as a land use must be preserved, – that is, the practice of establishing forests and then cutting them down. What they said was ‘forests’ must be preserved.  So if the only forests we have are even aged, single species plantations, – then that’s what we must preserve, surely, in order to be part of the solution to this world-effecting problem/crisis. Some readers might find the thought of preserving conifer plantations as a fairly depressing thought, but………

Luckily the plantations that we have are ideally suited to being transformed through skillful management and time, into something quite different. Permanent forests that contain big trees and that produce quality timbers, ad infinitum.  That’s our good fortune, should we opt to grasp it.

This was a single species plantation, in Austria. Now look at the beauty of it, and the timber it is still producing. No need to cut it all down. The worlds leading experts are telling us: |Forests must be preserved. Producing quality timber does not have to conflict with forest preservation. Done this way the plantation has been allowed to evolve into a forest, with its unique ability of carbon sequestration.

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.

Fiona with a big hedgerow ash growing in the background.

But we knew it would be foolish to plant ash directly into this heavy rushy field. It’s obviously been many years since the land had forest cover.  In mid February when I visited, the field looked washed out and tired like it had had too many late nights and not enough nourishing meals. We will need to entice in ash by planting a pioneer species first to help things along and the obvious one that comes to mind is alder.

Alder is a tough, reliable pioneer that grows fast in its early years. It will bring in insects and birds quickly and will provide the land owner with some firewood after only 7 – 9 years.

Five year old alder being pruned on my own farm in County Cavan. It's hard to believe this was a rushy field like Fiona's just five short years before this shot was taken.

Alder thrives in wet conditions; it fastens nitrogen into the soil and it deals with rushes in a few short years.  In this area, alder is a common pioneer species that comes in of its own accord once sheep/cattle/horses have been fenced out.  So if it’s good enough for Nature to plant alder first, we figured we can’t go too wrong.  Ash comes in on the heels of alder once the alder has shaded out the grass and the rushes.

Young ash sapling growing up in native alder, willow, holly woodland

Ash likes the nitrogen rich top soil that the alder provides.  If it doesn’t come in quick enough for what we want, we can do some small patches of enrichment planting of ash in a few years time, making use of the work the mighty alder has done to change the site conditions in our favour.

We ordered 1000 alder (common) and 200 ash from Van Der Wel Nurseries in Cappagh, County Wicklow.  The plants arrived by courier the following week and were planted the day after they arrived at the site by Niall Miller.  All told the job cost just over €1000. 

I love doing jobs like this.  Small, simple, straight forward. Fiona didn’t want to bother with applying for a grant for such a small job so it meant there was no delay and we could do what we wanted.  We didn’t want to drain or to mound the land.  No need to disturb the site by doing that.  The trees were notch planted in clumps.

The plants we used were good and strong and being alder they will be up above the rush in one growing season. 

Fiona showing height of newly planted alder and ash saplings in her new 'forest'

Niall Miller lives in County Leitrim, not too far from Fiona’s land. He knows the local soils.  He’s an experienced tree planter/woodland worker and did a great job getting all the trees planted in just one day.  Planting conditions were great.  It rained after the trees were planted.  There shouldn’t be any losses.  That is if Fiona keeps that electric fence well maintained and turned on to keep the horses out.  There are a few hares around the area, so we do expect some hare damage.  Niall planted in clumps rather than in rows, so this might help minimize hare damage.

In a few weeks the worst of the hare activity will be over and the trees will soon be in leaf.  I’ll paste up a few photos on the blog at the end of summer and we can see how the trees have performed. Not much to see at this stage, but we’ll follow this site’s progress as it slowly transforms from rushy field to small woodland.

Firewood - thinnings from 8 year old alder trees