Coillte responds to concerns over felling at Killykeen

Five Coillte representatives met with residents concerned over recent felling in Killykeen Forest Park last Friday afternoon, October 4.

The forest park is made up of 240 hectares with two areas of 5.28 hectares and 5.08 hectares recently clear felled, causing concern among locals.

One hundred and thirty seven hectares of the area is managed for nature and some of those gathered saw an “opportunity” to add the recently felled areas to this number.

Coillte currently manages over 20% of its land for nature conservation and biodiversity, with a goal of increasing this to 30% by 2025 and to 50% in the long term.

“This felled area, to me it’s an opportunity because it’s on that sign posted walking area,” said Reuben Jayawardene.

He asked if Coillte would “convert those ten hectares to a natural habitat”.

Referencing Coillte’s commitment to ‘delivering the multiple benefits of our forests for climate, nature, wood and people’, the nature enthusiast said the suggestion “ticks the box for the people part, for climate part and for the biodiversity part”.

“To me it’s a no brainer.”

“Here is an opportunity where there is local interest,” he pointed out, referring to the other 10 people who came from all over Cavan and Fermanagh.

Communications Officer Pat Neville responded by explaining that an ecologist looks at the estate and puts a “bioclass ranking based on the habitats that are there”.

“They would have identified habitats with a higher potential bioclass than what’s in Gartnanoul to move into the 30% and on to the 50%.

“There’s other habitats on our land that would be ecologically more important than Gartnanoul that are selected for that.”

Others gathered shared concerns for wildlife, mental health and wellbeing, the recreational facility’s future and climate issues.

“We’re not trying to micromanage all of Coillte, we just want to make sure that this area is managed well for the people as well as the wildlife,” said Andrea Brady.

“This is a valuable tourist spot as well,” she said, with others chiming in adding that the park is an educational resource, a place for fishermen from all over the world to visit and a place of historic value.

Coillte had already highlighted that in one felled area, 70% of the trees replanted will be Sitka spruce with a mix of 15% oak and 15% Scot’s pine. In the other area 80% will be replanted with Sitka, with oak and other native broadleaf trees making up the remaining 20%, which would be nearly three hectares of the land.

Of the native species that will be replanted, Pat confirmed they “are not planted to produce wood, they’re not due to be felled”.

He added: “Sometimes we do carry out management operations in nature areas.” Such works, he said, would be “ecology driven”.

However, going forward, such works will be carried out with notice given to the Killykeen Forest Park group, a brainchild of the meeting.

“We work with community groups up and down the country so it’s great to have a new one here today,” Pat said.

“We share them [plans] publicly for input so we’re very happy to listen to the group.

“With every group we mightn’t agree on absolutely everything all the time but we are very happy to work with them.”

Going forward, Pat explained that a Coillte ecologist will come to speak with the group and inform “what nature is here, what our plans are and what the management approach would be for those [managed for nature] 137 hectares”.

Regarding plans to clear fell in the park in the future, he said “it is likely that trees will be felled in Killykeen again, what will happen though is that we’ll share all our plans with the group here so they know exactly when, where and what will be happening.”

Barry Kavanagh is an environmentalist from Bailieborough who attended the meeting and found it “quite positive”.

“I thought it would have been more conflictory, the guys that came from Coillte were very open, very honest.”

He said that organisation “has turned a corner from the typical clearfell method that they always practiced.

“At least now they’re listening to the communities and they’re going to put in more of the native mixed species.”

Emma Reynolds is local to the area and was surprised that the felling took place after recent investment in the area.

“I understand that Coillte has a commercial remit that they have to do a certain amount of felling.”It surprised me that it was relatively recent that all that investment was made into the cycle path.

“We have The Killeshandra Way and also the Camino Walk and the Loop of the Lakes, so all that investment has gone in for those events and to make Killykeen more accessible and more attractive to everyone, it surprised me then that the felling was all right up against those new renovated and newly installed things.

“I think that was a prime example of very short sighted planning on whoever made those decisions.”

She believed that Coillte were “very open” to what those gathered had to say.

“They were very informative of their plans for the forest and they were also very helpful in terms of us getting our voices heard more in the future,” she said, adding that a group forum was “a very good idea”.

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