Ash grower Ger Buckley joined Joe Molloy to discuss how the disease known as ‘Ash Dieback’ has affected his trees, and all the Ash trees across Ireland, which could very well change the future of hurling and hurleys as we know it.
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now then you’re very welcome back we are turning to a story that we haven’t covered overly on the show over the last number of years but probably one that you’re very aware of the ash dieback crisis now Arthur outside wrote a piece about all this for the 42 uh recently and it was something that he wanted to follow up on that we wanted to follow up on the ashed dieback crisis on these Shores really started in 2012 when it first arrived on these Shores it’s incredibly Stark it is predicted frankly that 90% of the ash trees on this island will die and there is simply nothing that can be done about it in the short term so 90 90% plus of the asht trees on this island are dying or will die uh we think of Ash we think of hurling which has been affected and is part of this story and that’s the sporting link here of course but Ash is a native tree to Ireland it’s one of the most common trees in Irish hedg grow and so this is a very profound issue for the country on a whole host of levels we’re very happy to talk to jar Bley Jer is an Ash planter from tier and he joins us on the line now Joe you’re very welcome good to talk to you thank you Joe you no it’s lovely to have you we might just give the backstory here for people very briefly because I wasn’t overly aware of it myself if we go back to the 1980s I mean you I mean I I was born in the 80s I just assume there were always lots of trees in Ireland Here There and Everywhere but you go back to the 1980s and Ireland had the lowest number of trees in Europe uh SEC second lowest in Europe behind Iceland um and so there was work to be done and the government set about doing that work they wanted to reduce the Reliance on imported wood and uh you know it’s interesting even in the forestry bill of 1988 Senator Michael Ferris at the time he said of the current situation as it was in the late 80s it’s a disgrace that a country the sponsor of The Magnificent game of hurling is faced with the Dilemma of importing Ash to make eares it’s ridiculous so for a host of reasons the government wanted to do something about this and they incentivized farmers and land owners to in effect start plantations to plant uh various trees uh I’m not sure when exactly but somewhere around that time J you looked at this proposal and figured it was a good one for you and so you went down the route of being an ash planter yes my my wife and I looked at it over 30 years ago and we planted uh Ash on a number of different sites in fact we have about 14 hectares of Ash in total and what was the thinking behind the decision obviously the the incentives was like this is a nice pension for us or the the money does the money did the money come up front or was it across the lifespan or was it when the ash reach maturity no the the the incentive was to uh plant a forest look after the environment and in the process uh establish a you know a form of pension long-term pension um and of course the the procedure of the schemes at the time were Grant aided so you were assisted in terms of the cost of planting the the Woodland then you had maintenance for a period of four years and that there was a premium paid depending on whether you were a farmer or a registered farmer or just ordinary person and we were farmers so we got a premium paid on the site for 20 years as did every other farmer of course and then you’re on your own after that so the expectation was when when you reach that point in time you would recover some wood as firewood and then leading on possibly to you know harly butts as it matured and ultimately to uh you know mature ash trees that could be used for making Furniture chairs tables etc etc and there in was the Cash Cow okay and if you got that far if you got that far yeah which is where we are today and was your sense chair anecdotally or otherwise was was this a popular scheme did did it attract a lot of people well you know according to the uh Department’s own figures there are over 6,500 owners with Ash plantations and there’s approximately 26,000 hectares of Ash Forest Ash Forest now not not roadside trees but Ash Forest planted so it was planted specifically on foot of the scheme that the department put forward at the time in addition to other planting as well we have uh commercial plantations of spruce also but certainly the the ash was was was uh held it as you know something that was necessary something that everybody wanted and when we were all forward okay so I guess things were going well until 2012 Ash dieback arrives in the country dieback is not specific to the asht tree by the way it’s it stems the name dieback from the way the branches die and Retreat when water and nutrients are uh closed off but uh in in the case of Ash Ash dieback arrived in 2012 it didn’t arrive on the wind it seems it was important Ed Wood which was uh contaminated because you know in the intern waiting for all these trees that you and others planted you know hurs in Ireland were still being made from for instance you know imported wood because it takes the guts of 30 plus years for these trees to mature was was Ash dieback can you remember J pre 2012 was this like something that was always talked about like is this like got you know we fear a pandemic was like were you always on the lookout for dieback was it a well publicized possibility no it was an unheard of disease uh when we went into this nobody had ever heard of Ash diac or anything of the sort and just if I can correct you the the ash diac is a a Spore that’s Airborne it uh lands on the leaves and it starts to attack the tree from the leaves down through the stem but when the tree then is unable to absorb nutrients from the ground it starts a second process of but rot so it’s actually rotting from both sides right okay so the tree doesn’t much Chance by the S things well as you just said in your introduction uh almost every tree in the country will die as a consequence of this disease those in the forest Ash Forest plantations will die rapidly because there’s such a vast number of them all together and then those on the road sides and you just need drive along any road at the moment and you’ll see ash trees are dying everywhere it’s well fascinating you say that CH I drive roadsides and look I’m probably listening to a podcast and not paying attention what should I be looking out for to see these trees dying I mean how Stark and visible is it for us driving around the country Well normally if you’re driving along at this time of the year every tree uh you know whe whether it’s Ash or Beach or oak or whatever it might be hwon or whatever they’re all In Bloom and they’ll be flush with green leaves if you look at the ash trees specifically you’ll see a stem with branches that have possibly a small percentage of leaves still on the tree and you’ll find many with have nothing because they’re already dead so essentially you’ll be able to identify the ash tree by virtue of its growth status on the roadside and our roadsides are lined with Ash presumably it’s a native tree it’s it’s it’s numerous this this you know when whenever this really takes hold in a visible way we will be under no Illusions absolutely not and and it also represents significant danger in so much as when these trees are dead or even dying they’re they’re uh prone to collapse either in wind or just with natural uh you know death they’ll just fall over so where you’re walking on the road or driving on the road there’s a great possibility that either a tree can fall down on top of you or that you can come around a bend and smash into a tree that’s just after falling down so it’s an extremely extremely dangerous disease and and and that’s also true in the ash Forest you know those of us who have Ash Forest if you walk through the forest which has dieback there’s a distinct possibility that either a tree itself will fall down or one of the limbs on the tree will fall off while you’re walking through the forest and it could come down top of you and and you know you know give you a very big headache it could actually kill you to be honest as a mentioned the ash dback first arrived on Irish Shores in 2012 how quickly is it spread how devastating has it been thus far what is the timeline in all this chair my understanding was it was identified initially in Lum on uh young plants were brought in I believe from Denmark now ordinarily uh any plant that would be imported would be would go through a you know a procedure whereby they would confirm the photos sanitary aspects of the plant but these seem to have come in and were planted not only Lon but elsewhere and once the uh disease became apparent as I said it’s a it’s an Airborne Spore so therefore it was carried in the wind and the minute it got into the ash Plantation numerous which throughout the country I mean 26,000 hectars is a lot of Ash plantations throughout the country and there are Pockets there are Pockets where the um the ash is you know uh intense like in tiporary Cork Limer clear there are significant pockets of Ash in those areas because that type of ground was ideal for for growth of Ash um and so the disease uh spread rapidly um we first noticed well the the forest service acknowledged that disease was present and sent out some circlers advising owners that if you identified this you had an obligation to report it and that was part and parcel of the obligation of maintaining your Forest according to the forest s standards so we first noticed Ash dbec on our Plantation in March of 2018 and we reported it uh there was a scheme at the time which set the standard for a tree of uh I think was 10 10 meters high and if you were outside of that it didn’t matter you couldn’t report it because it wasn’t part of the scheme so we reported in March of 2018 and ever since then for the last five years we have been back and forth to the forest Service uh with different applications there was several reconstitution under planting schemes we went back and forth we applied for them then the first one was suspended uh I think four 47 million had been spent on removing the young Ash plantations and then they realized that that wasn’t working so they introduced another scheme a reconstitution and under planting that was suspended its replacement was suspended and then we entered into this huge debate as to this problem on the whole because it was been evident that it was across the entire country and doing significant damage to the forests so uh recently uh as you know the minister announced a scheme that well there were several uh initiatives along the way we had project Woodland which didn’t address the ash diack issue but then there was a specific uh report requested by the minister on the issue of Ash DC that was submitted in uh last year and uh that report made several recommendations it categorized the uh Ash diack problem as a National Emergency this is how serious the authors of that report were in terms of defining what impact head um that report made several recommendations and then the minister said well okay should’ have her officials look at it uh they now seem to have looked at it and they’ve come out with a scheme the most recent scheme which announced was announced on the tth of April um basically saying that you know now we have a solution to the problem and uh that all sounds very good but when you actually dig down into the uh solution that they proposed it’s not a solution at all it’s it’s it’s actually it’s a Band-Aid on a big problem and the problem is not going to go away so it’s it’s a very serious very serious matter for anybody who has an nashh Plantation and indeed for anybody walking the road with an ash tree about excuse me what is the Band-Aid solution well the Band-Aid solution is uh you know at the moment what the as I mentioned there was there was a number of schemes along the way since 2012 with different aspects in terms of Grant Aid to support the actions that an nor would have to take um we applied uh and we got one of five sites approved on which uh the removal Grant was, Euros per hectare at the time now the removal Grant has been increased to €2,000 EUR per hectare and this follows in part uh several protests from owners uh meeting that we had specifically with the minister in yall in September of 2021 where I actually demonstrated her that the level of the grant was insufficient to cover the costs right I had inves with me I showed them to her and said look here you are these are facts it’s not undeniable that the grants are not supporting the the uh process that you wanted to support and they said it would look at it but they didn’t look at it and the most recent report in this uh review group they made recommendations and they declared it a national emergency and now the minister has come out with this response on ashc which is supposedly the solution to the problem but as I said uh it’s not really the problem what it does in effect it provides a grant to support the removal at 2,000 a hectare okay uh it provides a grant for the replacement of the ash tree with other species of tree it doesn’t necessarily have to be Ash um there are some considerations for instance if the ash Plantation is in a special area of conservation the policy of the department is it must be replaced by a broadly so other words it would have to be replaced with an oak tree or Alder or something of that sort whereas if it’s not in an area of special conservation or it could be replaced with a commercial uh crop of trees such as Spruce or yes or anything else so in addition to that then the last element of the uh forign scheme is that they will pay uh 5,000 per hectare to owners as a form of compensation and they they categorize it as a climate action performance payment um it’s very hard to understand what that is actually because what we you know to be honest um the announcement which seemed good at the time it was more of a spin than it was of a truth and you know it was held it as the solution even Minister mcle came out and said that you know this is now the solution but in fact when you look at it it’s not the solution and the the complexity of the issue is such that the the the package that they’ve offered is not representing a fair and reasonable solution to the problem for instance there is no consideration for the age of the effective plantations and there’s a big difference with whether you have a a twoyear old plantation a 10y old plantation or a 20-y old plant because the the quality of the Timber is naturally uh to be considered there is no consideration in this for the location of the forest some forests are easily accessible others are not um there’s no consideration for the variable cost sorted with those complexities uh the removal and replacement depending on the site conditions and of course the the biggest thing of all is there’s no consideration for the economic loss to the individual owners and that is a major issue now yeah one might say these intangibles are very hard to to quantify and they are so the solution to the intangible would have been uh the removal Grant the assistance with the replacement so the replacement Grant and the payment of a premium for as as in the past for a period of 20 years so in order to enable you to look after the forest and to maintain it and to make sure that you had a good uh Forest over time time that seems to have been the piece that has been forgotten and that seems to have been replaced with this notional climate action performance payment and that is 5,000 per hectare which incidentally is payable uh in three installments 2,500 on uh removal of the ash Plantation and successfully reestablishment of another crop and then 1,50 on the second Grant which is four years later after the maintenance period and then it’s uh 1250 the following year so the 5,000 per hectare is payable over a period of five years yeah okay so there’s a one- siiz all aspect to this which is H imperfect and probably unfair in the host to levels jar can I get a sense from you of the speed at which diack is spreading and killing these trees so for instance in a forest which is densely populated from when Ash diack first appears in One Tree to numerous trees catching it and and and dying how quickly is that process how quickly is all this happening around us well as I mentioned uh we first reported Ash DC on our sites in 2018 yeah I could show you the condition of that Forest I have phog of that time and it was just broadly evident I could take you or even show you photographs of that same Forest today and take you back there and show you the trees actually down on the ground that have fallen over because they’re already dead right so in the space of in the space of five years the Ash dck has done extraordinary damage to the forest and of course it’s not just the the disease itself there are weather conditions you know wind blow Etc so the moment that the tree loses its capacity to to to stay alive uh any you know significant wind and suddenly it’s gone it’s fall over so it is a you know very detrimental and it’s very very fast it’s very quick now it will not be as evident in a mature forest or on the HED R even though you’ll see the tree is dead it won’t fall down as quick because it has a huge you know the tree itself is is is very large and the root structure is very big so it’s a it’s a very rapidly uh moving disease and it infects the trees very quickly and it kills the the trees also very very quickly okay I mentioned at the outset it’s predicted 9090 90% of ash trees to be eliminated I I didn’t have a timeline on that when do you think we might hit 90% well again there is a thought in in Chagas amongst the scientists that they there is a percentage of the trees that will have a genetic structure that will reject this disease and they’re hoping that they’ll be able to breed you know uh take seedlings from those trees and breed uh continuous Ash uh tree that would resist the disease going forward now it will take you know years and years I I I would say to to to reach that point in time we’re talking 20 30 years maybe before we would have some sort of a Seedling Plantation if it were to work at all now when when how long how quickly do I think it will affect uh the forest overall I would imagine uh in the space of the next five or six years depending again on weather conditions if we continue to have you know severe storms as we as we’ve seen recently and rain as we’ve seen since last July non-stop um you know the forest will will will actually deteriorate rapidly and I would imagine that most of the ash plantations will be completely uh destroyed in the next I would say 10 years absolutely totally destroyed and meanwhile along the way the roadside trees will start to drop one by one depending on the extent of the exposure and the wind etc etc so I would imagine in the next 10 or 15 years we won’t see an s3e anywhere that’s my personal opinion based on the experience I have from since we reported in 2018 to where we are now I is Stark Prospect to say the least now the maybe the the scientists will differ with me that’s just a lay man’s opinion it’s based on my personal experience yeah and look you have plenty of it Jer Bley is with us if you’re just tuning in he’s an ash planter in tipar and and was part of that scheme in the 80s whereby um the planting of ash trees was incentivized and Ash dieback arrived in these Shores in 2012 and has had a devastating effect quite obviously hurling is not the most important aspect here but it is an aspect and we you you know we saw hering mentioned back in the 80s when these plans were first muted and um you know Ash is is so uh almost profoundly perfectly suited to making a hurl hardwood perfect level of flexibility malleable enough that you know it can be altered to sue the hurler’s um preferences so Ash across Europe is is under threat so so where do you think hurling is going to be over the next couple of decades the disease is evident everywhere across Europe I mean it was imported from Europe to Ireland if we had imposed the right kind of sanitary controls maybe we wouldn’t have this problem but the department obviously failed in that endeavor um where would leave us with Harleys um most of the Harley manufacturers in fact even some of them have gone out of business as a consequence uh Conley and I think cannings up in in gway are gone yeah um others are under pressure um but Tes in CLA have developed a Harley using bamboo so they are looking for an alternative the game will not be allowed you know just disappear but it’s unfortunate that that uh it won’t be the clash of the ash anymore it’ll be Clash of something made from something different yes and some some of the senior players today are using those holies and they seem to be reasonably happy with with the you know the reaction of the stick when it hits a ball or the clash of the hes when they strike and uh it seems to be a possible uh solution to the Hurley problem but that again is you know it’s just one manufacturer and I don’t know if if they’re in a position to produce enough to to meet the requirements of the nation in terms of all the teams that are out there every village and every town has and as I understand that that’s that’s kind of it’s quite an industrial process the bamboo lead hurs it’s a composite of different trees it’s it’s not necessarily like a piece of bamboo is taken and and shaped out of the ash so so that that traditional hurly maker will be OBS oh absolutely it’ll be a pure industrial process that will generate something that looks like an ash Holley but isn’t an ash Holley and it’s a composite uh probably glued product of of bamboo you know fiber actually compressed and and made into the shape of a holly so it’s not it’s not going to be a traditional Ash stick that’s for sure final one Jer almost rude not to ask I I presume 2012 when this first arrived and you had you know gone with the scheme and it was it was a quasi kind of pension and and and it’s just blown up so completely and the compensation package clearly isn’t what you might have hoped for what effect has all this had on you and on your family and and the stress of it all well look uh we are pretty resilient and and we have tolerated this nonsense for the last several years I mean we have been back and forth with the department and the forest service on numerous occasions about this and every time you know we when we initially identified this um the scheme was canceled an alternate scheme was introduced uh we applied for that we uh that was suspended and then to try to deal with this problem we we we tried to address it through what was called the Woodland Improvement scheme and we got we got approval for that subject to a license but we never got the license so this continued and then we got into another scheme which we applied for and then uh that was all under consideration until now when we have this most recent scheme and in fact I I I have to put my hand up and say that we have already taken out about four hectares of Ash uh under that scheme and we’re waiting now for you know the the requisite payments etc etc but the impact is significant in so much as the potential Financial Lo well the the actual Financial loss is very significant uh you know the value of the wood the value of the Timber at maturity would be you know and that’s that’s completely ignored in the whole process of this replacement of this new scheme and from from a mental perspective uh I suppose you know I told my hair out several times wondering are they ever going to try to address this and in what Manner and are they listening to anybody I mean the the the uh this scheme even was announced by the minister without consulting the tax the task force on ashack which she established only a couple of months ago so she came out announced this thing without even having consulted the people whom she appointed to offer advice in relation to it so you know it’s a complete uh there’s a complete disconnect and and indeed several politicians I might say uh TVs and Senators have come out and strongly suggested that this is not the solution to the problem but again nobody seems to be wanting to answer it and one one have to ask is is the uh announcement of this scheme an election Ploy because you know it’s just announced at a very particular time point in time where we have local elections and we European elections and it’s not necessarily you know it is thin and the one size fit all as you said earlier it doesn’t actually uh solve the problem now I would ask one question in relation to the whole scheme this uh climate action performance payment which they seem to suggest is the the method of compensating the loss on the side of the owner uh Minister uh mcle came out and said that uh it’s not possible to provide an annual payment for the reestablishment according to the Department’s plan of action on ash dback but if they’re able to create this scheme this climate action performance payment and pay 5,000 in three installments over a period of 5 years why aren’t they able to extend that over the period of 20 years and pay a premium as they would if the forest was planted today new uh there’s also aspects of the scheme uh for instance uh if if the forest that you have on the ground is 10 years old and dying from the ash dieback technically you’re still entitled a premium for the following 10 years so they’re saying that anybody who has a forest that’s 10 years old will get paid premiums for Dead Ash for the next 10 years and then uh look towards compensating or Comm into the scheme so the the considerations in this are absolutely ridiculous in my opinion okay you know they should have looked at it in a very very different way and they should have consulted the the task force that they established and they didn’t and and here we are we still haven’t the solution to the problem a valuable solution to the problem we have we have something that people have to sign up to and in fact they forc foring people to sign up to now they’re saying if you don’t sign up to this you’re getting nothing another thought I suppose is you’ve planted these trees from um young age well over 30 years ago they’re beautiful trees um obviously there’s a financial motivation and component to them and and ultimately they would be used um and cut down at the same time to watch them just die like these beautiful trees that have been in your life for 20 30 years must be upsetting as well there must be that aspect to the whole process to there something so Stark about dead trees and thousands of them look it’s very distressing to walk into the forest and see the trees just decaying before your eyes is extremely distressing because when you planted this you planted it with the best intentions to to have you know good environmental practice to have a a crop at the end of the day that would yield some benefits and you also have had an obligation to maintain it so you’ve been going around you know trimming these trees guiding them to grow straight all these things that you’ve done over time and suddenly now it’s all dying around you it it is an extraordinary thing to to just watch the forest decay in front of your eyes it’s extraordinary yeah having nurtured it you’re talking nurturing there really caring for them yes and and and I think you know anybody who has planted a forest have an obligation a duty to actually maintain the forest to the forest service standards so you can’t just plant a tree and walk away from it and go back 100 years later and say that’s Grand there is an obligation there’s a duty on you to do certain things over time and there’s a duty on the inspectors inspectorate within the for service to come out and ensure that you’re doing that and some of your payments are actually contingent on you having done it so they will tell you what to do you do it they’ll inspect it and they’ll confirm it and you’ll get paid so it’s not it’s not just a matter of sticking a tree in the ground taking all the money and running away yeah there’s there’s an emotional component there an emot it’s and it is very very distressing to see the forest actually you know disintegrating before your eyes now one might say okay you know eventually you’ll clear it you put in something else and 30 years later again it’ll look like a forest but I won’t be there to see that you know I don’t know who will but I won’t possibly it’s uh is the distressing point like I I love to walk through the forest for me it’s it’s a it’s almost therapy it’s therapeutic to walk in the forest to take the dog walk off through the forest enjoy the sounds enjoy the birds watch The Wildlife I have deer I have hair I have Badger I have Fox I have everything that you could imagine right that you’d want to see on the land yeah and it’s just it’s just falling apart yeah J I’m very sorry it’s just a desperate situation um thank you so much for coming on talking to us about it J Bley who’s um obviously been an ash grower in tiary for the last number of decades thanks a Milan J appreciate it no problem Joe you’re welcome and I hope we can find a better solution to this than what they have put on the table right now
1 Comment
very good interview , showing how government with there Band-Aid solutions didn't work.