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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
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Govt Plans to Sell Off Our Forests for 3 days Worth of Expenditure. Public Will Loose Access for 90 Years national |
environment |
news report
 Wednesday March 20, 2013 21:15 by T
 Govt claims forest worth more 50% than they are to justify sell off. Bertie Ahern is facilitating this. The government is planning to sell off our national forests which are currently owned by Coillte. The plan would be to sell harvesting rights on 500,000 acres out of 1.2 million that they manage. They claim it is worth €700 million although in the Peter Bacon report on Forestry, he puts the true value at €360 million or the equivalent of 3 days of government expenditure. Bacon said: "economic rationale for the proposed sale of harvesting rights no longer stands up and cannot be justified." and that he further concluded it would actually cost the state €1,300 million to sell the harvesting rights of Coillte due to various liabilities. The report says that the forests should be developed further as a public resource. But it does not stop just there because part of the plan to sell the harvesting rights would see the land lease to private companies for 90 years and there would be no obligation to continue public access and given experience it other countries the public would lose access to these lands for recreation. This would affect tourism, hikers, mountain-bikers, joggers, families out on weekend walks and many other forms of recreation. Leasing the land for 90 years is a good as selling it for good! There are a number of private institutions interested in grabbing our national forests amongst them Chinese firms who in all likelihood would bring in their own people and trunks and ship the unprocessed wood back to China directly, thereby threatening many existing timber related jobs and local saw-mills in Ireland. Last year trade agreements were signed when the Chinese visited Ireland and we still do not know what promises were made since they are secret. One of the companies also interested is a Swiss private pension firm Helvetia Wealth and none other than ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was appointed it's chairman no doubt with an eye to contacts and network of people within government, councils, civil service and state bodies that he would have. In fact it is not even possible to know from Coillte if any sales have already been made with Helvetia given that Coillte have already sold 40,000 acres of our public land to the private sector. But Ahern is not just inserted into Helvetia for he is also chairman of the industry body International Forest Fund who are also behind the land grab not just in Ireland but elsewhere. We must recall that this is the same lucky Ahern who told the tribunal that he won €25,000 at the races and lead the economic miracle in Ireland and told the 'naysayers' to go hang themselves. Unfortunately quite a number of people have committed suicide since the miracle economy collapsed. Of the 40,000 acres already sold a large chunk were sold to facilitate Shell in Mayo for their operations where they will extract the Corrib Gas for free since they will pay no royalties and will be able to write over all costs against tax. Land was also sold to Wind Farm developers in areas that would be considered unsustainable for wind because the sites are not the best locations for wind and they would be underpowered. People should be aware that much of the forestry targeted for the sell off is on land which was planted at state expense in the 1960s by the then Forestry Service. No doubt there was many a statement then about how these were for our future. Instead because of the insistence of bailing out bankers, developers, speculators & gamblers and bond holders this wealth is stolen from us all through sleight of hand. The Woodland League has been campaigning for the past few years against the sell-off of our forests and it is time that the pressure is stepped up and more people take notice and get involved. In Sweden where parts of their forests were privatised a few years ago, they have now reversed the process and are taking them back into public ownership. In the UK, similar moves are afoot. It is possible we can win this fight as this is a very broad issue affecting a very broad range of groups and people and affects all counties. We also need to put a stop to the drip drip selling off of forestry that is happening. The reason appears to be is because Coillte who were given 1.2 million acres and had profits of €400 million have managed to screw up and appear to be in great financial difficulty particularly with their pension fund and they seem to have only kept going because they are selling off the nation's silverware. The Bacon report was commissioned by the Forestry workers union, IMPACT and is available here or the copy attached to this article. Assessment of the Consequences of the Proposed Sale of Coillte’s Timber Harvesting Rights Connemara Community Radio carried the interview (attached here) of Andrew St. Ledger of the Woodland League on Jan 31st 2013 days after the publication of the report. Much of the above report is based on this interview. The Woodland League ( http://woodlandleague.org/ ) who are opposed to the sell-off of Coillte harvesting rights and land are promoting an alternative strategy which consists of the 3 R's of forestry. These stand for
1) Regeneration of native forests
They are running a petition to save Ireland's forests and have 37k signatures so far.
Interview of Andrew St. Ledger of Wood Land League on Connemara Community Radio  Interview of Andrew St. Ledger of Wood Land League on Connemara Community Radio
14.22 Mb
 bacon_forestry_final_report_on_sale_of_coillte_harvestingrights.pdf
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Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5Start using your local woodlands. Don't ask permisssion. Get creative. Respect the land but remember you have a right to access it and use it. Gather firewood and building wood. Make shelters. Teach your kids how to make shelters. Learn how to use fire responsibly. Teach your kids and other peoples' kids the same. Pick up litter and improve the place. Create natural sculptures and artwork. Build community around areas of woodland. Learn what a healthy ecosystem looks and feels like. Explore possibilities for returning Sitka spruce monoculture back to mixed deciduous. Plant trees. Learn about local fauna and flora. Build relationships with local fauna and flora. Build relationships with other woodland users. Observe the action of water in the landscape. Engage assertively with Coillte and local authorities over your right to access and use the woods. We are the land. The land is us. Spread the word.
In order for the land to be subjected to laws of the market the relationship of the people with the land had to be broken. It is high time we regrew this bond. Our future depends on it.
When humankind is alienated from the landbase, tyranny is the norm and ecocide the final destination.
Coillte's monocrop, commercial plantations are part of the problem. People need to assert their right of way. Check out the Enclosures Act.
Seek out the most ecologically healthy areas in your locality. These are often to be found in inaccessible out of the way places too awkward for modern farmin or industry. Steep sided valleys are often lovely places. If you haven't been utterly desensitised by modern civilization you will recognise them by the way they make you feel. Calm, energised, optimistic. Use these places as a baseline guide to tell you what your bioregion would look like if it hadn't been ravaged by human civilization. Consider how to extend this health out into the landscape.
This is the same Bertie Ahern that also HALVED the tax rate on profits from the extraction of our oil and gas by companies such as shell. from 50% to 25%.
As if the state disgraced corrupt politician, Ray Burke, left them in was not eviscerated enough!
It's a wonder he wasn't in on this too.
I guess the bloated 100,000+ per annum pension the state pays out (why???) was enough for him, unlike Bertie who wants more.
Traitors both!
And it just shows you that FG will happily co-operate with the likes of Ex FF Ahern when it involves privatisation of our national assets for private gain, which is their mantra.
[ Oh to be a fly on the wall (with a tape recorder) when such deals are going down. And to record the bit where they talk about what their cut is and how it will be delivered.
Because I can't honestly believe anyone could be so deliberately short sighted and terminally stupid without a generous payoff ]
Save our forests from these greedy cynical traitorous vultures.
Was it Coilte who gave away our forests to Shell/Statoil etc;for the Corrib gas project?
This resulted in the savage destruction of hundreds of acres of forestry,bogland,beaches and finally the plundering of our gas/oil.
Some of these were in protected areas,SACS.
When will we ever learn?