Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. Well, the Sitka spruce is a tree that has become one of the country's most polarising environmental issues, has now become a controversial topic within primary schools. A children's book called Sitka Spruce, the Amazing Timber Tree, was distributed in schools by the Society of Irish Foresters, SIFA, and the Irish Timber Council.
And I'm joined by Oisín O'Neill, Nature Advocacy Officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust. And we did invite the Society of Irish Foresters to join us on the programme. They declined or nobody was available. We did get a lengthy statement from them.
Chapter 2: What is the controversy surrounding the Sitka spruce book in schools?
And I will bring some of that to you as we go through this. So, Oisín, what's your problem with the book?
Hi, Clare. Thanks for having me on. So, yeah, as you said, the book is Sitka spruce, the amazing timber tree, was distributed to primary schools across Ireland. What it does is it paints a lovely rosy picture of the Sitka spruce tree in a forest, seeing abundant wildlife around it. But the reality, as many people will tell you, couldn't be further from the truth.
What the book fails to mention is the well-documented serious negative ecological impacts of the Sitka spruce monoculture forestry model and the anger and grief that Irish people feel that our native woodlands have been replaced by this lifeless alien conifer forest.
So on that point, and again, I say that Society of Irish Foresters did have the opportunity to come on the show and say this to you themselves. They declined, but they've given me this statement. So let me put the points to you. They say that the forestry industry learned from previous policies when planting spruce. So now what happens is that they're set back from rivers and roads and houses.
All forests have a 20% broad leaves included and 15% biodiversity. So they say things have changed.
That may be what they say but the reality is the reports show that there is huge biodiversity loss in Ireland right now and the forestry plantation, the monoculture plantation model is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss in Ireland.
Forestry has been identified as one of the top three pressures on Irish waterways with the pine needles changing the chemistry in the water, killing salmon, plantations are sprayed with pesticide and the clear felling model that is still used in Ireland which was developed in Central Europe, by the way, and not even used there anymore, is seriously, seriously harmful.
It causes huge soil exposure disturbance and is visually horrifying, as many in rural Ireland will tell you.
Come back to the book itself and the fact that it has been distributed to schools. And the former minister who was in charge of forestries at the time has written a foreword in this book. So what's your issue with the book being sent around?
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Chapter 3: What are the ecological impacts of the Sitka spruce monoculture?
But what we are saying, biodiversity loss is a fact. It's a scientific fact. It's widely accepted. If you look at this book, it makes no mention of the negative impacts of Sitka spruce plantations. It talks about how great Sitka spruce is, how it lives in a forest full of nature. And this isn't factual. If you walk in a Sitka spruce plantation, it's lifeless. It's dead. There's no nature in there.
What we would put into schools if we were to do that would be educational, would be giving the full picture, would be giving children a balanced understanding with a view towards educating them on the importance of biodiversity, on the importance of nature for people, for the world we live within.
You're calling on the book to be removed altogether, is that right?
We're calling on the department to address this, yes.
What does that mean though? How should they address it?
That would be at the discretion of the department, whether they would like to recall the book. I'm no education expert. I don't know if they have the power to do that. So an education expert will be able to tell you the answer to that.
OK, well, Oisín, we leave it there. Thank you for joining us. Oisín O'Neill, Nature Advocacy Officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust. And again, we did invite the people behind this booklet to join us on the programme.
The Society of Irish Foresters supplied us with a lengthy statement, some of which I brought you there during our chat with Oisín, but they did decline to join us on that conversation. The Clare Byrne Show. With Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9. On Newstalk. Conversation that counts.
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