In recent years, a number of policy position papers have provided recommendations on the optimum level of forest cover for Ireland. Invariably, the recommended level of forest cover is 18% of the land area by 2050.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s strategic plan ‘Forests Products and People – Ireland’s Forest Policy’, which recommended an annual afforestation programme of 15,000ha.

The afforestation level recommended would, if achieved, provide Ireland with 18% forest cover by 2050.

This level of forest cover has been endorsed by the Climate Action Plan (2019) and has been repeatedly recommended by COFORD, the Department’s advisory body. “There is significant potential for forest establishment on appropriate land types where trees will flourish and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,” it stated in its 2022 statement Forests and wood products, and their importance in climate change mitigation.

Guidance

Last year, Ireland’s Forest Strategy 2023-2030 relied on guidance on future forest cover from stakeholders. especially participants at the mini-citizens’ forum, Deliberative Dialogue on Forestry.

“Taken together, 88% of participants [at the 2022 forum] endorsed a forest cover target of 18% or more by 2050,” the strategy states. There is no mention of an afforestation target by the Department.

Instead, the Department states: “The pace at which 18% forest cover will be achieved will depend on how actively landowners and stakeholders will engage in demand-led afforestation schemes.”

So far, 18% forest cover is a mixture of aspiration, recommendation and hope rather than a target by the Department. There is no mention by the Department or Government how this level of planting can be achieved.

Afforestation in Ireland

When it was launched in 2014, the authors of Forests, Products and People were conscious that annual afforestation had fallen to 6,100ha from 10,096 in 2005. Apart from modest increases in afforestation during the two years after its publication, planting has been in freefall ever since.

The authors of Forests, Products and People realised the parlous situation of afforestation in 2014, and made a number of recommendations on how a 15,000ha planting programme might be achieved.

After numerous calls for an independent Forestry Development Agency (FDA), they recommended that a taskforce would “consider the establishment of a stand-alone Government body or agency, which could have responsibility of addressing the development and promotion of the forest sector and forest products nationally and internationally”.

Calls for an FDA have increased in recent years, as exasperated stakeholders have watched the decline of the annual afforestation programme to levels even below those achieved in the mid-1930s. Yet, the Department has been deaf to this call and has even reneged on its own promise to establish a taskforce in 2014, despite the worsening situation.

While final afforestation data for 2023 has yet to be compiled, the end of December returns show that in total 1,651ha have been planted – the lowest since the mid-1930s. Minister Pippa Hackett and her Department stubbornly ignore the call for an FDA by pursuing a business-as-usual approach as the afforestation crisis continues.

Actions required by a Forestry Development Agency

The establishment of an FDA would bring forestry in line with other natural resource sectors, including ports and shipping (IMDO), food (Bord Bia), sea fisheries (BIM), inland fisheries (IFI), marine research (Marine Institute) and renewable energy (SEI). It would prioritise the following issues:

  • Afforestation: Provide afforestation targets to maximise Ireland’s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century, and ensure that forestry is a net carbon sink, rather than an emitter if current planting levels continue. It would encourage rather than discourage farmers, in particular, to plant some of their farms by providing long-term assurances, such as a State-private forest insurance scheme and carbon payments (see below).
  • Land availability: Identify land suitable for forestry and act on the 2022 COFORD report, which states: “Analysis suggests that there is an ample land base available in Ireland to approach a forest cover of 18% by mid-century.”

    • It would examine the feasibility of all land suitable for forestry, including marginal agricultural land and uplands, where suitable. It would question the blanket ban that now exists on virtually all planting of upland sites, including native woodland establishment. It would promote a land use policy to achieve a geographically balanced afforestation programme, and identify potential planting sites on a forestry map of Ireland.

  • Carbon forestry: Create an innovative afforestation programme that would leverage the carbon value sequestered by forests and use this to reward and incentivise farmers and landowners who plant. This would involve the establishment of a Forest Carbon Code for Ireland to provide carbon payments after forest premia expire. It would measure carbon not just on sequestration in the forest, but on the ability of Irish wood to displace fossil-based materials in construction and renewable wood energy.
  • Forest products: Ensure that the recently appointed Timber in Construction Steering Group by Minister Hackett, delivers its findings to maximise the use of homegrown in construction within a clearly defined timeframe.
  • Forestry promotion: Establish a nationwide promotional forestry campaign. This proactive approach to afforestation would have the same level of intensity as other State agencies, such as Failte Ireland has in promoting Irish tourism and Bord Bia in promoting Irish food.
  • Accountability: Publish an annual report outlining performance against targets in afforestation, felling licences, roading, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, timber price trends, nursery supply, forest health and non-wood forestry, including recreation.

    • Fitzgerald outlines the benefits in expanding forestry

    Economist Dr John Fitzgerald outlines the benefits in expanding the forest estate in Ireland in his introduction to the recently published Forestry & Timber Yearbook 2024.

    Ireland has the potential for significant forest expansion, unlike the rest of the EU, where there is little scope for afforestation, Dr Fitzgerald explains.

    “In Ireland, by re-allocating a small part of our agricultural land to forestry, we can take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, providing some cooling to offset the major warming coming from the rest of our economic activity,” he says.

    Senator Pippa Hackett Minister of State with responsibility for forestry at the launch of the Forestry and Timber Yearbook, with Mechteld Schuller, Irish Timber Growers Association (ITGA) and Joseph Spollen, Bord na Móna, co-sponsor of Yearbook along with the Murray Timber Group and Coillte. \ Drima Marketing

    Dr Fitzgerald, who is a member and former chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council, addresses issues such as the role of wood in the bioeconomy, including timber in construction.

    “Worldwide, the manufacture of cement accounts for around 6% of all greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.

    “It is very difficult to avoid these emissions in manufacturing cement, so that reducing [it] can play an important role in decarbonisation.”

    Dr Fitzgerald outlines a number of issues, which must be addressed in expanding forestry.

    “It must provide a clear and certain economic return, otherwise it won’t be sustainable,” he says.

    “Forests need active management [and] new forests also need to be robust in the face of global warming – the species chosen should be able to thrive in a warmer Ireland.”

    Copies can be ordered online at www.forestryyearbook.ie.