Empire couple seeks seeds of change in Ireland
By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor
“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Each fall, Empire residents Robert Foulkes and Robin Johnson travel from northern Michigan to southwest Ireland to labor on their 20 acres in County Cork along Glandore Harbor — also known in the native tongue as Cuan Daire or “Harbour of the Oaks.”
The couple is currently on a mission to change the face of their steep hillside from a primarily Sitka spruce plantation to a diverse forest of native Irish trees, and for years they’ve helped other county residents plant indigenous trees, too.
Robert explains that Ireland and Michigan, though almost 3,500 miles apart, have many similarities. Ireland’s an island and Michigan, surrounded on three sides by Great Lakes, is like an island. Both were swept by glaciers. Each experienced deforestation, and government forest services eventually stepped in, establishing plantations of Sitka spruce in Ireland and red pine in Michigan.
However, in Ireland, only 10 percent of the land is now covered in forest, even though 70 million trees are planted each year, according to Coillte, a government-sponsored forest products’ company. (Robin says Ireland has the fewest trees of any country in Europe.) Most of the forests consist of Sitka spruce, native to the Pacific Northwest. Robert says the trees were first planted in the 1960s on hilltop grazing land purchased from farmers by the Emerald Island’s forest service. Spaced just six feet apart, (using a 1930s’ U.S. pine plantation model), the spruce grew into dense stands which were and are clear cut for timber and pulpwood.
Forest service practices of clear cutting and replanting with another monoculture increases soil erosion and decreases biodiversity, but Robert says this is how the country’s foresters have been trained.
“The current policy for most of Ireland is to plant trees in rows,” he explains. “It’s a place that doesn’t have the experience of natural woodlands, like we do.”
Robin notes that there’s a mandate by the European Union to reforest, but Irish farmers view tree plantations as a waste of land, and the country’s citizens are just beginning to learn how to live with trees.
“The people haven’t seen a good tree, literally, in their lives,” Robert says, adding that forest trees found on Ireland’s west coast grow to a height of four feet before the wind turns them left or right, and the island’s remaining large, indigenous trees are hidden in steep mountain valleys.
A new leaf
Of Irish descent, Robert has been visiting Ireland for 30 years but never put down roots there until Robin suggested buying a parcel of their own in order to plant trees, as they had for friends. Robin, an assistant professor at Andrew’s University in Berrien Springs and a versatile architect (currently designing small, energy-saving homes), says she wanted a beautiful forest “with tree cover where it used to be, that’s ecologically sound.” Robert, the owner-builder of White Oak Timber Frame in Suttons Bay and a developer of Empire’s New Neighborhood, explains he “wanted a monoculture to undo.”
The couple bought former Coillte acreage with a Sitka plantation that is “right across from” a Catholic retreat center formerly owned by a lord who didn’t cut his trees or, as Robert puts it, “a real forest.” The proximity of the two forests is wonderful, he says, because “birds bring the seeds in.” There are fewer and different insects and critters in Ireland, Robin explains, and Irish farmers view the woods as a haven for “undesirable” wild animals, like the badgers and gray fox that are welcomed on the pair’s property.
Their land is fringed by native holly and spindle berry, which Robin describes as a profusion of “pink berries, orange seeds and magenta-red leaves in fall.” Growing among their Sitka spruce are young oaks and a couple of old, indigenous oaks that the foresters spared. Shovelfuls of soil from the base of the old trees aid in planting oaks elsewhere on their property.
They’ve select-harvested individual spruce trees, selling the logs for timber frame construction or for other projects, or to sawmills, or for teaching timber framing to do-it-yourselfers who use them in homes, sheds or barns. This fall, they’ll consider thinning their trees, opening larger spaces that might allow more indigenous species to spring up. “We’ll augment the rate a little by collecting seeds,” Robin says.
Three years ago, under the direction of a forest service employee, they gathered 75 to 80 pounds of acorns in a deep valley beneath Ireland’s tallest mountain, located in the rugged terrain of a national park. They sold the nuts to the forest service and gave some seeds to friends, which prompted puzzled looks from some who aren’t yet aware of the nuts’ significance.
Woodland awareness
The climate is right, Robin says, for oak trees that once thrived in County Cork, and other areas of Ireland, but were cut for docks, shipping piers and coal.
Pockets of nice woodlands are found mostly on old estates, she adds, and include big trees which aren’t indigenous. On the 300-acre Manch estate in West Cork, 150 acres of mixed tree species have been planted and 75 acres of existing woods have been “restructured.” It’s here, where one of three national oak trials was begun in 2006, that the Irish National Forestry Foundation manages woodlands “in a continuous and sustainable fashion for optimum commercial gain,” according to the estate’s web site.
Manch is also the home of a Sustainable Forestry Education Centre offering curriculum-based activities, courses and research projects for schools and woodland management courses for farmers and landowners. An International Day for Biological Diversity is celebrated with demonstrations by woodcarvers, furniture-makers, and artists who create works on site. A “Slow Foods” meal is prepared with food foraged from the woods and raised on local farms. Activities are designed, Robin says, to educate the public about the usefulness and beauty of trees.
Change is incremental, and Robert would like to help create an Irish “bio-station,” (like the University of Michigan (U of M) Biological Station near Pellston, where research and educational classes are conducted), that encourages landowners to learn about natural landscapes.
“I want to get people really excited and passionate and supportive of biological systems,” Robert says, explaining that he would like to see space made for students to learn, professors to study, and filmmakers, artists, writers and scientists to come together.
“Scientists are doing good work, only no one hears about it,” he adds. “I would love to get the beginning of a working collaborative going.”
If you’re interested in Ireland’s tree-planting efforts, Robert suggests visiting the website of The Local Project by the Crann (“tree”) organization, whose mission is to reintroduce a wood culture that was lost (www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Thj_qeh7M). For more about U of M’s biological station, visit www.lsa.umich.edu/umbs. Robert is happy to talk with landowners interested in diversifying their tree plantations. Email him at Robert(AT)timbersmart.com.
