Small-scale plantation owners join forces to get seal of approval in bid for better prices

IN AN effort to see the wood from the trees, John Sherlock and a group of small forest owners are taking the issue of forest certification in to their own hands by getting their trees quality-approved to clear the way for better prices in worldwide markets, writes Claire Fox.

The group of landowners in Meath and Louth were initially approached in 2013 by Teagasc to form the North East Forestry Group as a way to help forest owners who were on the cusp of having to thin their trees.

The group has been instrumental in educating forest owners on thinning, from knowing when is best to start the process in order to yield more from your crop to improving forest access. However, once the thinning process got under way, the group soon realised that if they wanted to sell their timber, another obstacle was in their way — forest certification.

Mr Sherlock, who is secretary of the group and owns a 50-acre plot of trees outside Navan, said certification was a “serious issue” for farmers as Irish timber companies currently only take 30pc uncertified timber, while the UK do not take any uncertified.

“Once we were set up, the whole issue of certification came up; 80pc of our timber is sawn and exported to the UK. With the private market going to exceed Coillte I would say that 96pc of privately owned timber is uncertified, so it’s a serious issue for farmers,” he said.

The group decided to form a legal entity and with the help of the Department of Forestry they are in the process of endeavouring to secure certification from the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC).

“We wanted to make a pilot certification project but we soon knew that we wouldn’t be able to cover the costs as a group so the Department stepped in as we had no expertise either. They also formed another pilot scheme with landowners in Cork as they wanted to get a good geographic spread.”

FSC got on board and are visiting the group of landowners’ forest plots this month to conduct a pre-audit, with a final audit due to occur in January.

“The pre-audit is like having a lad giving you a spin around before you do your driving test and telling you where you can improve. As a club we’re only as strong as our weakest member so fingers crossed we’ll get certified and be able to sell our timber to anybody,” said Mr Sherlock (pictured).

He compared certification to the Bord Bia Quality Mark as it acts as a stamp of approval but believes that the Department needs to support forest owners nationwide to encourage certification as it is a costly process.

“I think that product certification is going to have to be countrywide. I don’t envisage that there will be a lot of small forest groups like ours. I think there should be large groups of certified owners. It will get more commercial than voluntary. I don’t see it in the short-term being able to survive unless forest owners get support from the Department.”