Robert Tottenham:Robert Tottenham was a champion of Irish forestry. To a great extent he lived for forestry. It was a passion he pursued vigorously for 40 years with an insatiable hunger up until his unexpected death at his home on April 12th, aged 82.
Born in 1925, he served in the second World War in Europe and subsequently in India and Burma. He returned to Ireland in 1949 aged 24, to run the family farm at Mount Callan in west Clare. The land was poor and mountainous and Robert faced the challenge of making a living there at a time when there were no subsidies.
Despite hard work and the most modern methods of agriculture, ultimately he realised that farming in such conditions would never be viable. But with his keen eye and practical, hands-on approach he gained an invaluable knowledge of his own land and the surrounding area. Then in the late 1960s his older brother, Charles, suggested he meet Tom Clear, a forestry professor from UCD.
From then on the idea of forestry took root in Robert's mind. He saw the possibilities that it offered, especially on the heavy, unmanageable soils at Mount Callan.
Robert set about planting most of his farm. At that time there was very little private forestry in Ireland. However, Robert's background in engineering came in useful. Innovative use of simple agricultural machinery driven by a skilled operator enabled the land at Mount Callan to be planted up over the following 20 years. An old Massey Ferguson 135 with an adapted single mole-bore plough was used throughout. Another cost-cutting innovation was the use of one- or two-year-old saplings instead of the recommended and more expensive older plants.
After just 10 years, Robert realised that on this western seaboard, only a few miles from the Atlantic, there would be a danger of his new forest blowing over. Influenced by what he had read about South African and New Zealand forestry practice, with their fast growing species, he started a regime of thinning early and heavily. This at a time when the "no thin policy" was the norm in the west of Ireland. His trees responded by growing even faster.
In pursuit of his vocation he attended forestry events across the country and in the UK, but he became increasingly dissatisfied with the advice that was being given as accepted practice. He was frequently the challenger who questioned the "tried and trusted" methods. He saw that as an agricultural country, people here knew little about true forestry, or silviculture.
During a study tour in Germany in the late 1990s when Robert was in his mid-seventies, the seed was sown in his mind that there was more to forest management than plantations, line-thinning and ultimately clear-felling forests, as is practise here. Shortly after that tour, he came across a European federation of foresters called Pro Silva, who practise and promote "close-to-nature" techniques, where forests are managed in perpetuity.
Here he witnessed a totally different approach and saw forests which comprised mixed species of all ages and were vigorous, stable and were paying their way. His hunch was that his fast grown Sitka Spruce forests would respond well to these management principles and a process of transformation could be tried.
As his youngest brother Richard said in his eulogy at Robert's funeral, when Robert encountered Pro Silva he had what could only be described as a "near spiritual conversion".
A trip to Switzerland to the Pro Silva European Convention quickly followed in June 2000. On his return, no time was wasted. Pro Silva Ireland was launched in October that same year, with Robert as chairman.
Robert chose to live simply in the house he loved - and in which he was born - and to work in his own forests, yet he became widely respected in forestry circles throughout Ireland and abroad as an authority. He is survived by his wife Jane and his beloved sons: Robin, Fred and George.
Robert Tottenham: born 1925; died April 12th 2007