Forest owners warn of damage risk for their unfelled trees
Private forest owners have warned they could face average losses as high as €100,000, if trees lose condition, or suffer windblow damage, while they wait for licences to allow harvest.
By mid-December, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine had a backlog of 4,700 licence applications to allow farmers carry out felling, planting, and other forestry operations.
The Co Cork-based Forest Owners Co-operative Society (FOCS) has warned that the inordinate delays in the issue of timber felling licences, and the spread of Ash Dieback disease, have become the two greatest issues facing their members.
FOCS chief executive Dr Kathryn O’Donoghue said unless both issues are tackled by Government as matters of extreme urgency, the forestry industry will suffer enormously, livelihoods will be lost, and all targets that Government have set for the sector will be undermined.
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