Coillte come under fire at meeting of Mayo IFA executive over land sell-off
THE recent announcement by Coillte that it has joined forces with a major foreign investment house to establish a fund to acquire 12,000ha of forests and bare land was strongly opposed at a meeting of the Mayo IFA executive in Castlebar.
Several Mayo IFA branch officers voiced their opposition to the proposed takeover of the land base in the country under the Coillte proposal.
There were calls for government to review the power vested in the state body by delegates at the Mayo meeting.
This is the first step in Coillte’s strategic vision to act as an agent on behalf of foreign and national investment funds to transition 100,000 ha of Irish farmland out of local farm ownership for afforestation by funds, said Mayo IFA county chairman Jarlath Walsh.
The most saddening part is that this venture is being enabled by the Irish taxpayer to the tune of €2.1 billion. The Irish taxpayer will be paying for the sale of rural Ireland to investment funds, said Mr. Walsh.
This will not add to the local community or the local economy. Furthermore, it will have a negative social impact through rural depopulation by encouraging investment funds to compete for land, disadvantaging existing local, new entrant and young farmers, he commented.
Mr Walsh highlighted the main concerns and resolutions to the executive meeting, as follows.
Concerns
Removing land from rural ownership, local communities, and local economies.
Selling off our best national asset.
The equivalent of 3,000 average family farms removed from our communities.
Giving investment funds an unfair advantage at the expense of existing farmers, new entrants and young farmers, essentially pushing farmers off the land. Farmers could be competing with Coillte for one in every three acres.
Coillte has stated they are bringing their very significant forestry and land management expertise to the fund, to aid and assist foreign and national investment funds in purchasing Irish farmland.
Solution
No premium or grant for investment funds.
The Irish Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) invest directly in Coillte to create new forests.
Coillte invest their government dividend (€30 million in 2021) in creating new forests.
As recently as 2016, the private sector planted 6,500 ha of afforestation. Then the licensing debacle occurred, and afforestation levels plummeted to an all-time low.
The private industry has repeatedly told the minister what would increase afforestation - fix the licensing process, and support ash dieback forest owners.
To date, neither has been done and we still have low levels of afforestation.