Ireland's dead forests: graveyards of the Hen Harrier
Irish Government’s forestry strategy threatens to wipe out the Hen Harrier
Ireland is the most westerly outpost of the Hen Harrier’s global range. The species is in big trouble here and has been falling towards extinction as its habitat is being lost majorly by conversion to industrial forestry. If the Hen Harrier is lost from this frontier due to habitat loss, it will not return nor cannot it be re-introduced for that very reason – there will be no habitat.
There are already approximately 220 million non-native trees, covering more than half of the land within Special Protection Areas that are supposed to be the last bastion of Hen Harrier conservation in Ireland. These areas are designated in line with the EU birds directive and national law and within these areas, member states are supposed to “avoid pollution or deterioration of habitats…”.
Not many Rare Bird Alert readers will need this, but a quick science lesson: Hen Harriers, as with other harrier species, evolved in virtually treeless landscapes. Harriers are birds of open country – steppe, prairie, mountain, swamp, moorland. This is why they nest on the ground. The exception to this rule for Hen Harriers as it happens came in Ireland, where for a number of years Don Scott observed harriers nesting on the tops of stunted trees. This soon came to an end however, ultimately proving to be maladaptive, as when the young harriers fell from the trees and were hidden beneath the canopy, they could not be fed or rescued by their parents. Suffice it to say that Hen Harriers and industrial plantation forestry dominated by non-native sitka spruce do not mix well. Some private foresters with financial interests in planting more land will tell you otherwise, in the same way as chemical companies told us DDT was not reducing raptor populations for decades. However, as with DDT, there are volumes of scientific studies and evidence from the field as to who the silent killer is. Truth always wins out.
Population numbers and trends speak for themselves. In the 1970s there were an estimated 300 pairs of Hen Harriers breeding in Ireland, while the 2015 national survey confirmed just 108 pairs. In that same timeframe, commercial forestry has subsumed tens of thousands of hectares of habitat that Hen Harrier and various other species like red grouse, curlew, skylark or meadow pipit depend on.
Some say it is a complicated relationship that harriers have with forestry. It isn’t really. Hen Harriers in Ireland and in certain parts of the UK will nest in and hunt in forestry when it is pre-thicket - before the branches of neighbouring trees meet and the canopy closes. After that, forestry may as well be green concrete. If there was a balance whereby half of the rotation was pre-thicket and half was post-thicket (and which would subsequently be felled as the other half began to reach canopy stage) then there would be some hope – but we are seeing plantations of second and third rotation sitka spruce now reach thicket/canopy stage after just 8 years. Certainly by year 10, the forestry is of little or no use for harriers. The plantations are effectively impenetrable and for the next 30-40 years. So forestry is “out of bounds” for 75-80% of its rotation as far as Hen Harriers are concerned. Then you can factor in the aftermath of clearfelling, where the barrenness of non native industrial forestry is exposed – it will take a number of years for natural vegetation to return and then just another number of years until the canopy is closed again.
Hen Harriers can and do nest in forestry. They are thought to be attracted to the tall, dense and rough vegetation that may present itself 5 years into the plantation, or in pockets of forestry that remained unplanted. This however is an ecological trap and it has been shown that harriers nesting in or near forestry suffer higher predation rates. This is true for many ground nesting species. Fox, pine marten and grey crow are believed to be the primary predators associated with Hen Harrier egg and chick loss in Ireland. There is nothing worse than seeing a pair of harriers you have watched from courtship display, through to pair bonding, nest building and egg laying, suddenly disappear the next day you go out, because a fox has lifted the young, days before they have been able to take their first flights.
So, in a nutshell, forestry has been shown to (1) remove habitat and (2) lead to decreased breeding success. If forestry was good for Hen Harriers (as the vested interests somehow claim), we would certainly be asking for more, not less!
The National Parks & Wildlife Service identified forestry as the main threat to Hen Harriers in the Special Protection Areas they designated in 2007. So, to “avoid pollution or deterioration of habitats” within these areas, what did the Irish government do? Allowed more forestry! Have a look at this. Politicians clapped one another on the back, the minister for forestry Mary Wallace said “I have no doubt but that forestry can play an important role in the recovery of species such as the Hen Harrier”. Well Ms. Wallace probably could have done with the science lesson presented at the top of this piece, but history shows that science was completely ignored in favour of vested interests. Since the SPAs were designated, the Hen Harrier population in those SPAs has declined by a third overall and the long term negative effects of forestry in these areas is probably yet to be fully realised. A few years later, the EU commission called foul on this arrangement that was clearly designed to appease private forestry interests. Forestry was to be stopped, and a threat response plan was to be implemented to “cease, avoid, reverse, reduce, eliminate or prevent threats to the Hen Harrier”.
Great! So that should mean no new planting of forestry within SPAs and that the area of forestry within the SPAs should be drastically reduced. See this comprehensive review of the forestry sector and Hen Harriers produced as part of the threat response plan.
It would be a shocking indictment of Ireland’s consideration of the birds directive, its own natural heritage and its respect for future generations if further loss of habitat by afforestation was to be proposed as part of the Hen Harrier threat response plan. Why would this even be contemplated, given the point of the threat response plan is to cease such threats? Because politicians are ultimately at the helm and politicians in Ireland have a most ugly record when it comes to consideration or respect for the environment, especially natural heritage. It is clear that the Irish government sees forestry as the main tool in offsetting the increased GHG emissions from the expanding agriculture sector. Intensify farming on the good land, replace the more marginal, biodiverse land and small farmers with forestry. There must certainly be pressure on the politicians from vested business interests. Could we experience deja-vu, a repeat of 2007, with politicians clapping one another on the back and even some audacious spin to say forestry, the main cause of Hen Harrier loss, will be part of the picture to help the struggling population?
Hen Harrier Ireland
henharrierireland.blogspot.co.uk/
23 January 2018
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