Forestry Now

Dermot McNally 0:01
Welcome to forestry now, where we explore the forces impacting profitable and sustainable management of commercial forests and natural woodlands. I'm Dermot McNally. Today's guest is Alan McKay. Alan is the manager at glasslough, the Holland group water scheme in North County Monaghan. In this interview, we briefly discuss how Alan manages his home forest. Then we turn to discuss Alan's role as county modern representative on the IFA forestry committee, and we talk about where the IFA are working for forest owners in Ireland. Finally, we discuss Alan's work and involvement with the river black water catchment trust. The trust have one project that aims to remove self seeded Sitka spruce conifers off the Heather boglands of Sliabh Beagh. And we'll find out how they do this and why it matters. As always, find links and contact details in the show notes below and enjoy the conversation. Okay, so, Alan, thanks a million for joining me. Glad to join Alan. Firstly, can you start off by telling me where your own forest is and what you've planted?

Alan mcCabe 1:06
Yeah, of a couple of forests here in Monahan. One of them was a family farm. It was just too far away to, you know, economically farm. So about 1516, years ago, we decided to plant it. Planted it in mainly sick of spruce, the cash crop, the normal cash crop. But we also put in a about a hectare of ash. We put in some a little bit of oak, and we put a little bit of alder in on the wet spots as well, plus that at one area that was at risk to a frost. So we put in some Norway Spruce as well.

Dermot McNally 1:43
Very good. And how's it all performing?

Alan mcCabe 1:46
Yeah, the sickest Bruce done amazingly well. You know, it's a really good crop. There was a little bit of larching it. We did remove it at the time because it was competing with the sickest Bruce. And, you know, it doesn't grow that straight or that well, so we took it out. So it was sort of a natural thinning process. So it was, you know, the ash did get ash die back. We removed the whole crop onto the Russell scheme. There was a few rows that I thought was, you know, wasn't affected by the ash dieback. But when the guys were cutting it down, they said, Okay, let's cut a few of these, just for example. And when we cut them, there was ash die back in them as well. So the complete crop was affected by it. So we cut it all back and we replanted it with a birch, improved birch, brilliant.

Dermot McNally 2:36
Okay, and what about your rope? Then have you done anything with it, or how is it performed in the ground?

Alan mcCabe 2:43
It the Oaks done well. So it has a we've done a little bit of shaping on it. We're going to do a little bit of a little light thin this year on it, and more shaping on it. But, you know, it performed well. There was no problems with the oak. The Alder was in some wet ground. To be honest with you, didn't perform that well. It dried the ground out. In hindsight, probably the site could have taken some spruce, or some Norway spruce, you know, but, you know, that's, that's the decision we took at the time. Yeah, that's hindsight. Yeah. Overall happy, you know, it was, it was a good decision. The premiums good to get on, tax free, the we had no problems with, you know, animals or deer or anything like that, except for the ash, we'd know instance of any disease or pathogens or anything like that affecting any of the crop at the minute. Now, what we're looking at is a forest roadway for thinning and, you know, for extraction in the future. So we're hopefully going to maybe start that in the new year. We're just going through the process of planning it and scoping it out, doing the application for the grant. So that'll be the next step on both of them. I've gone off the idea thinning. I know a lot of the experts out there, and Chagas especially, would say, Listen, thin, if your site is medium or even lower risk to wind blow to thin it. But with the recent storms, especially storm Owen there, recently, I've sort of taken the decision not to thin. I'd rather take a lower risk of wind blow than a higher, you know, tree density or fine crop, I'll take that risk of a lower pay, you know, on the fine, fine felling, that's the decision we made. Just not as in now,

Dermot McNally 4:30
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no. Totally understood. And just where the road is going in Alan, will you be able to get the road in without upsetting the stability of the of the Sitka? Or are you coming into the broadleaf area,

Alan mcCabe 4:42
yeah, well, the broad leaves we planted, the ash we planted at the time we put that on the, you know, the edge of the sickest Bruce. So any of the entrance into the forestry have that softer ash planting. So the ash is big. You can out now. So there's a natural buffer, you know, the area to, you know, to take the roadway. So, and we designed the roadway the plantation, you know, we were thinking ahead of where the roadway would be, or where they, you know, the bell mouth will be there for, you know, turn it into the plantation. So we'd all that sort of pre planned. We didn't. We kept the setbacks from the roads and things like that, which sort of facilitates easy access into the site.

Dermot McNally 5:26
Very good, very good. And have you enough hectorage there to make the road? Or will you have to pump much of your own money to it, because the road grant is paid by the Hector?

Alan mcCabe 5:36
Yeah. We think we might have to add a little bit to it, you know. And for the maybe the turning circle as well. Maybe they might have that a little bit in it, you know. But it should more or less cover, cover the cost

Dermot McNally 5:47
of it. So it should very good. How did you physically thin that Alan? Was that a manual job, or was it just that they were dying off?

Alan mcCabe 5:54
No, they were actually performing very well. They were outgrowing the spruce. So a we just chainsaw operator went in and just cut every one of them. We left a few in here and there, just to see how they do. But, you know, our reasoning for taking them out was confirmed. You know, you could see they were growing faster than the sickest spruce. They were out shading, outperforming the sickest Bruce around it, so maybe eight or 10 trees around each one of them was being affected by that, that single tree. So it was a good operation to take them out, and even consulting with, you know, Forest Service afterwards, they said, listen, that's, that's, that was a good idea if you were putting them in again, larching again, plant a little group of them together, a corner of them together, but not, you know, spread out across through this Bruce plantation. Get you, you know, it's makes sense. And you know, the stock and density was still there probably something, if you've good to marginal land, the stock and density that we plant at today is probably too high. You know that if the stocking density was slightly lower, we probably wouldn't need to thin as much, or thin at all, possibly. So taking out these large was like an early thinning process as well. So the fact that I don't have to go back and thin at the moment was probably, you know, that 10% of Lars that came out at that stage, you know, naturally let the forest in itself.

Dermot McNally 7:25
Very good. Okay, well, maybe we'll move on to the IFA forestry committee. Then you're the county monitoring representative on that committee. Maybe you could tell me what's involved and what the IFA offer their forest owning members.

Alan mcCabe 7:39
Yeah, I was adopted onto that committee in probably springtime this year. In the committee, there's a representative from every county in Ireland on it, and then we have the normal committee chairperson and Vice Chairperson, and there's a secretary as well, a we meet minimum four times per year, you know, face to face, usually Dublin, at Farm office in Dublin. And then we organize maybe two or three site visits per year. You know, just go out to see various farms, saw mills, you know, whatever exhibitions are all at the time. So it's been a very a good experience. On my behalf, so far, we have a very good subsection or cross section of people with different A levels of experience. And you know, exposure to forestry at the meetings. You know, their meetings are good. They're informative. You know, everybody can get their opinions across. You know, the decision making is, you know, equal everyone has an equal vote. I have to say, our Chairman is very, very active in he's sitting on a lot of steering groups. And, you know, the various government sectors and departments would invite the IFA as a major stakeholder and a major representation of a farm on forestry out there to a lot of their meetings, and a we get the ear off the minister as well, we'd be able to, you know, invite the various ministers into our meetings, and, you know, really challenging them and ask them the hard questions and give them, you know, our view. So, yeah, it's it's a good forum, a good committee, a good way for, you know, local farmers to contact me or the other reps in the other counties and bring you know that their issues problems to a national level and get it aired at a national level. And one thing the committee does in the background, like, you know, we have a very good secretary there that works with IFA, but if people have, you know, individual issues with the department, and I'm sure dermod, you've come across like I have, you know, there's you ring the department. Means you mightn't get through you talk to somebody, you may not get, you know, the decision you think you should be getting. But when we refer these issues to IFA, they seem to have a hotline into the department. And, you know, in a lot of cases, can get, you know, a decision that was a maybe hard or wrong decision, maybe turned around, or maybe some compromise there, you know. So a lot of work goes on in the background. You know, there's a lot of meetings, maybe the chair and vice chair take. You know that maybe the whole committee can't attend, but we feel that they're representing us extremely well, and know that the feedback, and you know, we're getting decisions, say, on the wind blow, you know, and replanting on the Russell, the ash day back, you know, there's some compromise coming there, basically from things that we've lobbied for and asked

Dermot McNally 10:54
for, yeah, so just on that. I mean, there's been a couple of meetings this year. What have been the key issues that the forestry committee is working on, on behalf of forest owners, the general issues now,

Alan mcCabe 11:09
well, of course, this year, wind blows, the big one. You know, there lot of work gone into the wind blow. We've sat on the, you know, the department committee meetings, you know, the wind blow committee that was set up, and we were extremely vocal on that, you know, we weren't happy with how things were progressing, you know. And we've taken on the sawmills and the the various contractors as well, and the haulage companies, and we've told them that, you know, what we see happening out there is not good at the moment. You know there's vulnerable people. You know they've been thrown into this situation. They never plan for wind blow. This is their first time. Maybe you know to cut their timber. You know their success. You know they're at risk of, you know, people taking advantage of them. So we've been talking to all the different actors out there, and just saying, Listen, you know, we need to be as fair as possible to people. I'm giving them advice, you know, how to go about getting quotations. And, you know, not just taking the force quotation you get and send them out information as well. Like, you know, what is the price of timber today? You know, that's not advertised anywhere. It's not on any website, it's not in any newspaper, but we're gathering that information, compiling it, and able to send that out to people and say, Listen, this is the price per cubic meter that you should be getting. And if you're getting less than that, go somewhere else.

Dermot McNally 12:36
Yeah, yeah, very good. And what mechanism Have you is for getting that price. Alan, is it that your existing customers will feed back their latest information?

Alan mcCabe 12:47
It's a combination of things. A bear Secretary phones around the sawmills, and some of them give their prices. Some of them don't give their prices. Possibly we have the consultants out there, the forestry consultants. You know, they be getting this information daily, because they be interacting with their clients, a also people that's gone through the process. They would, you know, just tell us what what they got, or what they didn't get at the time, or hope to get at the time. So we take all of this and you try and get a rough average of where the market is at the moment, and feed that back out. But it's, it's useful information. You know, it's really important that people know what the market is paying. Like, we have examples of people maybe getting 20% below the market price, and when they had that information and go back to the Solomon and say, Listen, you've so you've given, you know, 20% more last week. And Solomon, okay, we'll give you 20% more. It just just phone call, like, on a big site, 20% it's a lot of money, you know, it's the difference between maybe breaking even or not, as the case may be.

Dermot McNally 14:00
Yeah, very good. Alan, I've heard anecdotally that ESB are trying to widen certain corridors through certain forests because of the fear of wind blow in the future and wires coming down. So in the one sense, we're all sympathetic to anyone who'd be affected by a loss of power due to trees coming down in a forest. How can a landowner protect themselves if the ESB wants to come into an existing forest? Is Is there a mechanism there if additional trees are cut that hadn't been agreed to?

Alan mcCabe 14:35
We actually had ESB at our last committee meeting, and to give us a run through on the current state of, you know, Storm Owen and after that, and lessons learned. And I think, as we know, there's some possibly legislation on the way through that would give ESB access to your lands, whether you like it or not. So it's a process. We're engaging with ESB and the department that whatever mechanism they come up with, that there's full consultation with the landowner and agreement with the landowner if there's easement needed there, or if there is trees that need to be removed, that the farmer is fully consulted, that there's an agreement that there is a payment for law September. And we've brought up things like, you know, during storm Owen, they went in and cut up trees for power lines. But they cut the trees into bits, you know, instead of cutting them into saw log that could be commercially sold, and they put their hands up and said, Listen, yeah, we know that happened, but there was a panic at the time, and, you know, we had to get the power back up. But we are in discussions with them that you know, in cases like that, the farmer, the landowner, is a compensated, fully compensated, at commercial rates. And if the easement, or the, you know, they needs to be agreed. You know that there was, or there is, you know, a policy with IFA and the ESB on payments, and payment rates for forestry corridors, and that's been actually looked at, at the moment again, you know, it needs to be revised, and some of the rates need to be updated on it. Now, as you said, their power is critical, you know, to everybody and everything you know. So we it's something we just can't say no to. But at the same time, we have to get the best package and the best deal for landowners farmers, and we will be negotiating data and working that out over the problem, at the time is like some forests were planted with the incorrect setback, and that's a problem, that is a big problem, where lines were taken down, where the proper setback was put in, not an issue. But on saying that some setbacks. You know, the trees are growing they're growing out. They're growing up. And there's a case now that there's some maintenance needs to be done. You know, you may need to trim back your that line of trees, not cut them back, but trim them back. And it was something like, you know, the ESB we're seeing, it depends on the agreement you had at the time. Some of the agreements the farmers signed said that you must maintain that corridor. Other farmers sent agree signed agreements that said, No, the ESB will maintain that corridor. So I think we all need to go back and look at what kind of agreement we signed at the time, but it's something we said to the ESP like, there's there's no way any individual or farmer or any organization even should be let near power lines and do maintenance. You know, it has to be done. It's, it's a dangerous, you know, task to take on without the proper train staff and capabilities. So we'll be saying to the ESP, that if there's maintenance to be done along these lines, that they must do it and pay for it. And at the same time, you know, with farmer, landowner agreement, you know that before the work starts, they say, Listen, this is what we're going to do, and this is the setback. We're going to be doing it too. And we also told them, like, you know that that first row of trees, or two row of trees along these corridors, if you take those trees out that leaves the rest of the forest, very successful to a wind blow so a, you know, they took that on board as well, and that, you know, we need to, you know, think these actions out before, before we move into sites and but as I said, you know, there's a there's work to do with them on this, and we need to engage with them. And you know, they agreed that, you know, at that committee meeting, the people in this room are experts on forestry. Now the ESB are experts in power, but they're not experts in forestry. So they have hired a couple of forestry experts, and that they're building up their forestry team, you know, and they're going to have a team of a facilitators, you know, to go out and engage with landowners and farmers, so they are putting resources into that site of the organization.

Dermot McNally 19:25
And finally, just on that, IFA committee, is there any talk about objections to licenses and the structure that the department have for assessing objections for licenses that go to appeal?

Alan mcCabe 19:40
Yeah, listen, we're we're always on the license issue. We're always in discussion with in a lot of cases, we're taking it on an individual case by case basis, but a policy level as well, that we would be engaging with the minister. And, you know, we like, I. Yeah, the minister has actually come out this week and said that a licensing is no longer an issue. It's, it's, it's being handled in normal timeframes now that there's no delays on it. But if there's any cases or individual issues, you know, we will take those on. We're going to have to wait a little bit of time now and just see how that how good a statement is, and see how well it's working, as you know, there, you know, there's serial objectors out there, and they're using a lot of the department's time and resources, you know. So we're just gonna have to see if the process is fit for purpose, and if it's not, we will be going back to the minister and say, Listen, we need to strengthen the approach or do something different here.

Dermot McNally 20:49
We'll get back to the conversation with Alan McCabe in a second. But if you're in the market for forestry, go to forest sales.ie. Where you'll find forest for sale across the country, and all the information you need to make a decision that's forest sales.ie. Now back to the interview with Alan. Well, let's move on to the river black water catchment trust. My understanding is that the trust aims to protect the black water and its associated habitats, but maybe you could explain the catchment and where the black water ends up, yeah, the

Alan mcCabe 21:21
catchment starts in Trone on county Monaghan. Sleeve Bay would be the source of five of the rivers into the into the black water, and then roughly up around five mile turn would be the other source of the black water. So the flow down in towards Armagh and through Armagh, and then the flow out through Loch ne. So the black water be one of the, probably the second biggest catchments that flows into Loch ne, and from a nutrification and sedimentation point of view, we probably be the biggest a input for nutrients into Loch Ness. So we'd be probably one of the biggest problem catchments for the problems they're seeing

Dermot McNally 22:10
in Loch Ness. Okay, where's that nutrification coming from, or that sediment coming from farming?

Alan mcCabe 22:17
Would be one of the biggest, or bigger, a input center notification. But then, you know, we have wastewater treatment plants. We have new urban centers, we have individual septic tanks. We have industry forestry is possibly part of the problem as well. But would would be, I would count it as a smaller part, or the smallest part of it. But you combine all these inputs, risks together. At the moment, the nutrification levels in the black water are too high, especially phosphorus. That's the killer. At the minute, the phosphorus levels are too high for the ecosystems in Loch Nate to handle.

Dermot McNally 23:04
Is that constant monitoring? Yeah,

Alan mcCabe 23:08
if sleepy, you know, about 100 years ago, or maybe little more, it wasn't in forestry. It was, you know, marginal land. It was peatland, it was Heather, it was Bagna mosses. And I think in 1900s around that stage, there was a decision made, you know, to plant land. And the state, the Forest Service at the time, decided, you know, this marginal land, say, around sleeve Bay, was the quality and type of land that should be planted. So the problem isn't now on sleeve Bay, is we have it, you know, all the periphery of it is planted, and it's all sick of spruce. And there is a policy within, say, culture, who would be one of the landowners when that sickest Bruce is removed, that we replant it with native species. But the trees up there are serving a purpose. Now, you know, they're holding back a lot of the water and rainfall that would fall in sleeve Bay. So it's something we need to think about and be very careful that if we start to clear fell a lot of this sickest spruce that could cause a lot of flooding. You know, on the rainfall that it would attenuate and hold up there to suddenly come back, come down through the streams and rivers much, much faster than it currently does. And we can see, like in the local villages here in Emmy Vale and glasswell, like on these big storm events, we're very get nearly getting to the, you know, 50 or 100 year storm events, the water levels, you know, where homes and businesses would be flooded and affected. So it's something, you know, we're sort of awakening to that, you know, we're going to have to come up with a really smart, intuitive. Of dynamic policy for how we manage the forestry on a mountain like sleeve bay that we just can't clear fell it in one go, if we replant it, what species do we replant it with? If there's area of peat, but just we shouldn't plant at all, just let it, you know, restore itself. But that's a long process. And as I said, Where does all of all of this rainfall which has been attenuated up there? Where does that go instead? Do we need to create maybe, you know, flood zones or something like that? Do we need to create maybe lots of leaky dams, you know, that will let the do what the forest is doing, but just do it some with a physical a dam instead, or something like that. So it's interesting. It's just, it's something, I think it's really, it's a new phenomenon, you know, that's, it's only coming now after, you know, one or two cycles of forestry in a peatland or in a mountainous area like this. So should we have a policy, you know, for the mountain, rather than each site? You know, when they're clear felled, and how often they're clear felled and what they're replanted with, even the pine needles from Sitka spruce, you know, they're like a blanket on the ground underneath the trees, and they soak up a lot of moisture, you know, if we could measure that amount of moisture, they soap up. But when they soak it up, they slowly release it into the ground, yeah, and even that, we call it a pine needle blanket. If that disappears on a site, how does that change the hydrology of the site this ground, ground had to be drained to be planted, so there is drains in it. So will these drains, which are now closed in with, with a sphagnum moss, and with other, you know, plants, will they open up again and sort of the flow of water suddenly become fast out of the site, you know? So lot of things there to consider that, you know, maybe we didn't think about at the time when they were being, being planted, you know, the D schoolers down the line.

Dermot McNally 27:06
So, yeah, that's interesting. Alan, can we step back one second, and I'll get you to explain just the size of sleeve bay itself, this area that we're talking about, the counties that that falls on, and then the the if, if the habitat is in good condition, what type of species are up there?

Alan mcCabe 27:28
Yes, so sleepy a it's an upland site. I think the highest point in it is about 380 meters, which isn't high for a mountain. It is part of Fermanagh, Tyrone and Monahan. The peatland makes up roughly 3000 hectares. The whole site, which would include a lot of forestry area, is probably 10,000 hectares. So it would run from listen ski right up to say at Nai, that would be the scope of the site. Two thirds of the peatlands in Northern Ireland, one thirds in County Monaghan. So it is that, you know, it's a cross border site which brings certain challenges to the site, because you know you're dealing with different authorities, different bodies, different, you know, objectives for each site. So the site, it's mainly a sphagnum Moses and Heathers. On the site, it's a blanket bug so, and there is actually a couple of areas of reels bug on it, on the lower edges of it, which is quite unique from a forestry point of view. I think the peatland, the 3000 hectares of peatland, is probably nearly 100% circled with forestry, commercial forestry, and that's the case in a lot of you know uplands in Ireland, at the minute, a species on it. We're lucky to have hen harrier, is one of the species that make it an SPA and we have red grouse in it. We have Maryland on it as well, golden plover snipe. So it's an important site, you know, for species. And you know, or were running out of sites that you know, support these species, and the numbers of these species on site are, you know, they're at their, their their limit at the moment, you know, for for sustainability, it's a interest in ecosystem. It's an important ecosystem, okay, so maybe then that's a good place to move into the river black water catchments trust the

Dermot McNally 29:50
project they're involved in, in removing self seeded conifers that are coming on to the bog land that you mentioned. What's that challenge and how. That happened.

Alan mcCabe 30:01
So basically, the conifer, commercial conifer plantations around the mountain, the seed that they produce, and sometimes when a tree is under stress, especially on a peatland, they create or grow more seeds. And these same seeds are blown by maybe the wind or taken out by birds and are dropped all across the peatland. And some of them grow, some of them, you know, I can see as a pioneer species. You know, the first seed that drops in the first little tree that grows, maybe doesn't grow so well, but to create a little miniature habitat where the next seed, when it comes along, grows much better. And you can see, after time, more and more trees growing, and each one growing even better in the last tree that grew. So this happens in a cycle. It's never ending. These trees change the hydrology of the peatland. They're not they're not native. You know, they're an invasive species up there. They're not supposed to be there. There should be no trees on the mountain, you know, not, not even native trees really should be up there. So the change of hydrology, other species start to grow beside them, a dry out the peatland, to change the structure of the peat. The other thing to do as well, the ground nesting birds, because they think a predator could nest in these self seeding conifers, they won't nest close to them. So if you've got 1000s of these trees spread out all over the mountain, the hen Harriers, the grouse, you know they'll say, I'm not going to nest here because it's not safe. So you're starting to isolate hundreds of hectares because of these single trees all over the place. So what we do is we map them, and we come up with a plan. We get some funding, is grant money to do all this. And NPWS have been extremely good and given us grants to do this. We hire a contractor, because, you know this chainsaw workers is dangerous to work. It's not something volunteers. Volunteers can do the small trees, pull the small trees, for sure. But some of these trees, you know, with the copy, maybe 3040, foot tall, maybe 1618, 24 inches wide. You know, they're, they're big stuff. Now, at the moment, we've got most staff remove all the big stuff removed, and we'll find, you know, sites that we've cleared five, six years ago. We have to go back to them now. You know, the reseedings are maybe two, three foot already on them. You know, now there's simple to remove at this stage, but it still takes people time, money to remove them. Now we've looked into various studies and policies, you know, when we do cut these trees, what to do with them, and we find the best thing to do is just leave them there. Just let them decompose. The damage you do to the peat and the habitat. Taking them out would be much more than leaving them there. And we've noticed already, like, you know, even some of the bigger trees when they've decomposed, and we were afraid, you know, that that might nutrify the ground around it, and cause, you know, maybe another round of, you know, invasives to grow. But it didn't, you know, they've just, they're just dying back, and it's making no difference to the habitat around them. So, as I said, like it's a constant a cycle. We move from area to area to area every year. It's never end and never will end. So, but you know, it makes a big difference to the site. You know, when you actually see the before and after, you can see, you know, how invasive the war and what did? What a difference that we're making to the sites. And we can already see species moving in to sites that we cleared, you know, maybe a couple of years ago, that hen Harriers are back using some of these areas that they weren't using before. Or we can see grouse or snipe moving into these sites again and expand, you know, their their nesting areas, which is exactly what we want and want to see, which is brilliant. Yeah.

Dermot McNally 34:06
Is Sitka the only self seeding invasive there? Or are you facing the same challenge with Cherry Laurel or Rhode dendron or anything like that? There be a bit of a

Alan mcCabe 34:18
Scots pain, see, but Scott's pain, which is an upland native three you know, there's a few Scots pain moving in, but honestly, be up on the peatland. There shouldn't, shouldn't be any Scots pain. You know, they weren't there for the last hundreds of years. Now, they might have been there 1000s of years ago, but they shouldn't be there. We'd see a few mountain ash growing up on it, which you'd see again, is that's where they should be, but not up on the peatland. They shouldn't be there. And unfortunately, we're starting to see the odd bit of rhododendron here and there showing up. Lucky enough to site, hasn't much of it. And you know, at the moment, it's easy enough to control. There's a bit of Laurel in play. This is, and basically, I think this was people taking their cuttings from home and dumping it on the site. And, you know, a cutting of Laurel, if it gets any contact with soil at all, off it goes.

Dermot McNally 35:13
Let me pause the conversation for a second. Ask you this, could your business benefit from increased profile in the forestry sector? If so, maybe you should advertise in Ireland's only dedicated forestry podcast, with new episodes coming out every two weeks. So get in touch with forestry now to see how we can make it work for you. Back to the chat with Alan. So your guys, your contractors, are going out, sometimes predominantly by hand on quads. Is it across the bog to isolate these trees, cut them down? Or how are they physically traveling? Because I can imagine the ground isn't that that passable under foot in parts of the bog.

Alan mcCabe 35:53
Yeah, we try and keep the quad usage down to the minimum. And I mean the minimum, you know, if there's an exist, existing track into the bog, you know, maybe where some of the people were cutting peat or something like that. We use them. But be honest with you, it's mostly on foot. It's hard work. And there's, it's a tough day, you know, when the guys do a day out there, it's tough work. And, you know, it's, it's dangerous because the ground isn't level as well, like, you know, so health and safety and, you know, where, Method Statements and all that kind of thing, we have to be very, very careful with it. Yeah, it's the only way to do it. Like, you know, there's, there's, unfortunately, there's no machine or there's no tool that will, will do it for you, you know, so, and you know, we you have to be on the ground level to see, you know what's there and where it is. And you know, we're looking at drones using drones to survey these invasive species. And that technology is getting really good. You know, it can pick out, you know, each different species as well, and you know the densities of it, and map it for you as well. But if that's something you were experimenting with at the minute, and when we build up these you know, data sets from the drone videos, you know, we able to know where and when we need to target areas, you know, and be able to estimate how long it will take to clear out an area again. And you know, how big of a team of chainsaw operators that we need, or maybe even volunteers we need to clear out that area, and how long it'll take?

Dermot McNally 37:30
Very good, just to come back to the natives that are self seeding. Are they only self seeding because the conditions have been altered so much from its natural state Alan.

Alan mcCabe 37:41
That's exactly it. You know, in its natural state, there shouldn't be any trees growing on that, on the peat. You know, it shouldn't support any trees. It should. The bog should be wet enough. And this is something that's happened over decades as well. You know, for peat extraction, there's been drains, artificial drains, dug all over the mountain and the water table, the water levels have changed. They're not you know, water should be roughly 2030, centimeters below the ground level. You know, that's where the water table should be, but it's much lower than that. So native trees, and, you know, a foreign invasive trees can get a halt and grow in that habitat now where there shouldn't have now going back 1000s of years ago. And there is some areas, you know, some maybe ravines or, you know, maybe some rocky areas that, you know, yes, there should be some natives there, but the vast majority of it shouldn't support any trees. You know, we can see as well. You know, wind bushes, where there's been pathways excavated out right down to clay level. And if you walk up that, it's all wind bushes each side of it now, because the peat isn't there anymore. So they've found clay to seed in and put the roots into and suddenly you got a species there that shouldn't be growing up there, but we've created the habitat for them by creating a walkway, and the problem is now that other species will move in beside them because they're creating a habitat for the other species. So every to every action, there's an equal, equal and opposite reaction. Unfortunately, unfortunately, these reactions may not be good,

Dermot McNally 39:27
you know, has the peat extraction stopped up there? And it will that be part of the project to start blocking some of them drains and bring the water table back up?

Alan mcCabe 39:37
Yeah, we're surveying the areas at the moment. You know where we can, you know, easily block some of these adrens on, you know, where there isn't peat extraction. We've a peace plus project starting, you know, this year, which lasts for four years, but the process of actually restoring the bog will last for decades. You know, you don't get quick fixes. Quick returns, and you're going to make a few mistakes too. You know, some of the things you're going to try may not work. You may need to double up on some actions, or change some actions, or maybe just give up on some actions. And so it's going to be a long press process, and, you know, it's going to be a learning process.

Dermot McNally 40:18
No, brilliant. Okay, so Alan, just before we finish, is there anything that we as forest owners need to be working on in the years to come?

Alan mcCabe 40:25
Yeah, I think it's from a private forest owners point of view. You know, it's really important. You know, I see forest groups and individuals coming together, and organizations like IFA, whatever you know that we upskill everybody. You know, if there's things that we can maybe share resources on, maybe equipment or resources, whatever it is that we can do that and knowledge sharing as well that, you know, if I make a mistake, you know about Dermot, and you won't make the same mistake and vice versa, you know? So I think there's a lot we can do there as individuals, as organizations and as an industry, and we need to make sure that nobody has a bad experience with forestry. You know that. You know it's good commercially. It's good for your well being as well, like you know, you get a positive experience from forestry. You know, from growing the trees, watching them grow, to clear, felling it, replanting it, you know, see how your timber is being used. See how it's good for, you know, the ecology. You know it's good for, maybe the water quality. It's good for animals. You know, it's good for livestock, shelter, things like that. But all the benefits were from forestry that, you know, without we can enjoy them.

Dermot McNally 41:38
Yeah, very good. Okay. Alan, thanks for taking the time to talk to me today. Much appreciated. Welcome. Derek, thanks. If you're interested in the work that the IFA forestry committee are doing, or the river black water catchment trust, look below in the show notes for relevant links. That's it for this podcast. Feel free to comment or subscribe for more episodes.

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