The number of afforestation licences issued for the planting of trees is back by over 93% so far this year when compared to the first six months of 2022.

To date, afforestation licences covering just over 130ha have been approved for planting in 2023. This compares to over 2,000ha during the same time frame in 2022.

Looking at the latest figures on the Department of Agriculture's forestry licensing dashboard, which was updated on the last week of June, forestry licence numbers are well back on the previous three years.

In 2022, the was an overall number of 4,972 licences approved. This figure stood at 4,246 in 2021 and 4,342 in 2020.

Planted

This year to date, there has been 787ha of forestry planted. This figure is comprised of farmers/foresters who received approval in 2022 to plant but only started planting this year.

This figure is also falling behind compared to last year, with 40% less trees planted so far this year in comparison.

According to the dashboard, felling licences covering 18,386ha have been issued and 27km of road licences have been issued to date.

Targets

The Department had targeted for 8,000ha of forestry planted to be last year, but only 2,273ha of this target was actually reached.

This meant that only 28% of the land targeted for afforestation was actually planted in 2022.