Peatlands, trees and the space for nuance

When Michael Healy-Rae was appointed as minister of state with responsibility for forestry, I was hopeful. The sector has been stuck – delayed licences, strained relationships, and growing distrust among farmers, communities, and environmentalists.

I felt that a dose of political disruption, even if it ruffled feathers, was preferable to stagnation.

I welcomed the fact that he would be razor-focused on delivering for his constituents – primarily farmers, but assumed he would also understand that environmental backsliding is neither politically nor legally viable, and that he’d focus instead on fixing systems that clearly aren’t working.

So I was surprised to hear him, in the Seanad, suggest revisiting the ban on planting trees on peat soils.

On the face of it, that sounds like a retrograde step. We have decades of evidence, both in Ireland and internationally, showing that large-scale afforestation of deep peatlands has been environmentally disastrous. It damaged biodiversity, altered hydrology, degraded water quality, and ultimately failed to produce commercially valuable timber.

Conifers

The conifer plantations scattered across the west, from Kerry to Donegal, tell the story. Many remain unthinned, unharvested, and economically irrelevant. They’re reminders of a forestry policy that pushed ahead with good intentions and bad science.

But if we stop at outrage, we miss the nuance and the chance to maybe have a better conversation.

Healy-Rae’s remarks were vague. He mentioned farmers not wanting to plant “green land,” and he talked about “rough ground.” That vagueness is actually the root of this whole controversy, especially on a subject as sensitive and politicised as peat. But it also invites a question worth asking: what types of land are we really talking about?

Let’s take him at his word. When he says farmers don’t want to plant green land, he’s right. The vast majority of farmers do not want to plant trees on their productive grassland – fields that have been carefully reclaimed, drained, fertilised, reseeded, and improved over decades. Whether or not we agree with that preference, it’s a reality – one broadly acknowledged by those on the ground.

Was Healy-Rae referencing enclosed, improved peats? They are often shallow peatlands that have already been heavily modified by agriculture – drained, fertilised, and sprayed annually with MCPA.

Carbon

These lands are already leaking carbon at a significant rate, but they are also valued by farmers. Recent research from Finland suggests that such degraded peats, even if rewetted, may continue to emit methane for up to a century.

That does not mean we abandon restoration, but it should temper expectations about how quickly or easily rewetting solves the climate problem.

And it raises the question: is a carefully managed native woodland on some of these sites a better outcome than ongoing degradation?

So if both good mineral soils and improved peats are off the table for most farmers, what’s left to plant? Often, it’s what might be called “brown land” – the unenclosed, unimproved soils on hillsides and uplands. That’s where the debate gets messy, because not all brown land is equal.

Some of it is deep peat: blanket bogs, or shallow peats of very high conservation value, such as wet heaths.

These ecosystems have high biodiversity value, store vast amounts of carbon and provide vital water regulation. The science is clear – planting trees in these habitats is a mistake. We should be restoring them, not draining them.

But there are also unenclosed mineral soils – perhaps what Healy-Rae was referring to as “rough ground.” These are currently excluded from afforestation support under Department rules if they are unenclosed.

That blanket exclusion makes little ecological sense. Many of these areas are perfectly suited to native woodland regeneration. Furthermore, many are already reverting to woodland due to a withdrawal of farming. But they are doing so without intention, oversight, or planning – and certainly delivering no socio-economic benefit for farmers.

These places are very well suited to meet some of Ireland’s obligations under the Nature Restoration Law – such as restoration of sessile oak woodlands. These rocky, brackeny upland sites are ideally suited to meet some of the 10,000ha of oak woodland restoration we need to do each decade until 2050.

We can’t afford to rule out the most appropriate sites without very good justification, justification I am yet to see.

To be clear, opening up this kind of brown land in an ecologically coherent way is not going to solve Ireland’s broader afforestation target challenges. Nor, in my view will it make a contribution to timber production.

But it can allow for the creation of beautiful, biodiverse native woodlands – and offer farmers in upland and marginal areas a viable path to participate in woodland creation without giving up their best ground. That matters too.

This is the complexity we need to lean into. Trees don’t belong on deep bogs. But trees – especially native trees – do grow on peaty soils in the right context.

I’ve walked through birch woods growing on mats of molinnia/fionán, and I’ve seen ancient Scots pines rooted in the heather of the Scottish Highlands. Nature doesn’t obey our neat classifications, and our policies need to reflect that reality.

This moment could have been an opportunity to have a nuanced discussion about land types, restoration options, and what farmers are actually willing to do. Instead, it quickly became another shouting match.

Healy-Rae was perhaps kite-flying, possibly under pressure from industry. But the response from parts of the environmental movement – jumping to outrage without seeking clarity – didn’t help. Once again, farmers and environmentalists talked past each other, instead of to each other.

There is a better conversation to be had. One that accepts that some peatlands must be restored. One that recognises that not all degraded land can return to pristine condition.

One that accepts farmers’ reluctance to sacrifice productive ground, and instead looks for practical, ecologically sound compromises, including, where appropriate, native woodland creation.

But to get there, we need clarity from politicians and maturity from everyone else. If we’re serious about land use, climate, and biodiversity, we cannot afford to keep defaulting to slogans and simplifications. The truth is more complex and more interesting than that.

Ray Ó Foghlú is an environmental scientist and woodland conservationist. He is the farm programmes co-ordinator with the Hometree charity.