Irish Government Considers Selling Off Its Forests to private investors

The Irish government is planning to sell off it's national forests.

Interest has been expressed by Swiss finance company Helvetia Wealth
- who own the International Forestry Fund (IFF)
- chaired by Bertie Ahern, (ex-prime minister of Ireland)
as well as The China Investment Corporation.

Link

An area greater than 1 million acres,
equivalent to two medium sized counties,
will be lost forever.
This will include some of our most valuable native woodlands,
wild places and some of the last refuges of our native flora and fauna.

They want to sell almost half of Ireland's forests...

Link

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.

So no more forest walks....

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 has had on other countries the public would lose access to these lands for recreation.

Bertie Ahern is a very corrupt politician.

From a comment on youtube...

Just to elaborate - form PrimeMinister Bertie Ahern, made the Coillte (irishforests) asset report exempt from the Freedom of information act, before leaving office. So only he & a select few knew what was in the report. When he left office in disgrace,& Ireland in financial meltdown,Ahern then went to work fora Swiss consortium and together they tried to buy Ireland's forests in the fire sale when our economy looked like it was totally dead.

There are two petitons currently against this. I have linked to both.

They will probably use the barren land for wind "farms" once the pesky trees are gone...



All this to pay off 3 days intrest to the IMF for bailing out banks.

Trees are now crops.

Ireland is a small Island.

Run by soulless banker-zombies.

Tfw.

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 1 Samuel 8:6-9

reply to post by WhoKnows100


Pardon?

reply to post by Theflyingweldsman

This is one instance where a government has gone way too far, so it should be stopped quickly. Either the sane politicians should step in and make sure this doesn't happen or the Irish people should demand it not be done. Even the pope can travel there and chain himself to a tree (along with his college of cardinals, who should have been chained to trees long ago). As Ireland goes, so goes the world, and now corporatism is set to grab national forests and bring them down to their level.

The UK Government tried to do this to English Forests in 2010 - They were met with such stiff opposition from pretty much everywhere they abandoned the plans.

My advice, kick up a royal stink about it. Not here on ATS, as that will achieve nothing, but in the real world and on FB/Twitter etc. They might be hoping to slip this through quietly...

Originally posted by WhoKnows100

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 1 Samuel 8:6-9

I don't see what a quote from a book of fairytales has to do with Ireland destroying it's forests.

reply to post by Aleister


The Irish sold themselves lock, stock and barrel to the IMF and the ECB.

Ireland is a playground for the new world order.

They used to be so religious...

In a time when people are worried about global warming, the Irish are cutting down their forests which help to stop the problem I think that people in this world are crazy, I will be glad to leave this crazy place when I die. I can't stand dealing with things happening like this all over the world. This change in climate is a real problem and caring for the forests are my first choice as a way to fix the problem. I guess we are going to pay science trillions of dollars to TRY to fix it instead of just being reasonable. I think Ireland is going to go down the tubes.

reply to post by stumason


I actually heard of this on facepalm, though I would never admit that on ATS

I reckon more than a few ATSers have facebucket accounts and could propagate this.

Irish press are not reporting this, but there is a protest march in wicklow on Sunday.

This sort of thing seems to be going on everywhere. Governments are attempting to sell-off PUBLIC lands and resources to private interests. What gives them the right to do this? They are P U B L I C property. They belong to the citizens. Where is the outcry? Where are the beheadings?

reply to post by rickymouse


My thoughts exactly, except I don't want to die.....yet...

reply to post by jtma508


They just blame the Troika (Link)

Originally posted by rickymouse
I think Ireland is going to go down the tubes.

That happened a long time ago.

The Irish puppet government have long since stopped working for the good of the country and the people.

And why should they, nobody cares about anything except their own fistfull of euros.
The population have sucessfully been pitted against each other to notice, the water is bubbling and the frogs swim on.

reply to post by Theflyingweldsman


Aye, I use it despite my dislike of it - it does have it's uses..

You would be surprised how quickly this could spread on FB or other social media... Set up a page, get some friends on board and it should snowball.. Also, you can get fairly cheap and effective advertising (sometimes you can get free advertising if you set up a website with a hosting plan) and it can reach millions. I did the same with my own website..

Originally posted by Theflyingweldsman
reply to post by rickymouse

 

My thoughts exactly, except I don't want to die.....yet...

I consider it graduating when I do die I can't graduate if I drop out though.

reply to post by Theflyingweldsman


There is only about 15% state owned forest in the whole of Ireland, I don't know the figure for private forestry.
I do know that since 1910 in Eire the first state forestry, and round the late 1940's in Northern Ireland, neither states were ever able to accomplish their afforestation goals because there was simply not enough land available for purchase. People do not want to sell their land and farmers will not sell their land.
Forestry in Northern Ireland is pretty much an agency now, and the harvesting process is done by tender, and there are planting grants for famers to convert the marginal land at least to afforestation. There has been a deal of uptake on the grants, but that is because many NI farms are small and unprofitable.
I don't agree wholly with what is speculated down south, but that report is very simplistic for what is a very complex industry, along with the very long turn around for the produce coming to market.
No matter what though, replanting is a necessity and has to be performed.

reply to post by smurfy


Thanks for commenting.

Roughly 10 per cent of Ireland is covered by forests and most of these are owned by Coillte, the State-owned forestry company.

source

In 2006 Ireland's total forest estate stood at 700,000 ha; this represents approximately 10% of its land cover. The largest forest owner in Ireland is Coillte Teoranta, a semi-state commercial forest company. It owns over 445,000ha, of which 351,671 ha are classified as productive forests. (This is almost 56% of all forests in Ireland today). In 2002, 42% (or 282,970 ha) of Irish forests were in private ownership. There are over 17,000 private forest owners and the average size of their forest holdings is 10ha.

Source


Here is a PDF with more information.

Did Ron Paul take over Ireland? He would tell you the Goverment should not be in the land buisiness and it should be sold to private companies. Of course his opinion is not what one would call popular.

All the birds in the forest, they bitterly weep
Where shall we shelter, where shall we sleep?

Originally posted by rickymouse
In a time when people are worried about global warming, the Irish are cutting down their forests which help to stop the problem

I think that people in this world are crazy, I will be glad to leave this crazy place when I die. I can't stand dealing with things happening like this all over the world. This change in climate is a real problem and caring for the forests are my first choice as a way to fix the problem. I guess we are going to pay science trillions of dollars to TRY to fix it instead of just being reasonable. I think Ireland is going to go down the tubes.

The afforestation programmes on both sides of the border are an industry, just that the turnaround is over a prolonged period around 30 years for softwoods and much longer for hardwoods, before cultivation and conversion.
At first both states used all the processes right through to conversion, the conversion aspect is long gone.
As for the climate change for the very long term, I don't think that science is mature enough, it's taken 50 years of wobbly stuff to actually agree on anything..officially.

I thought I should add, (for those interested) as it is recent news here, the father of the 'Castlewellan Gold' a Nootka cypress planted in Castlewellan arboretum in the late 1800's was a victim of the terrible weather here in March.