An 8ac site near Donoughmore in Co. Cork has been purchased by Hometree to be used as an educational woodland, to establish and conserve permanent native woodland in Ireland.
The not-for-profit organisation based in Co. Clare will use the amenity to host school and college groups as well as using it as a showcase location for farmers to see the ways in which they can integrate native trees into intensive farming systems.
According to Hometree staff, they have plans to restore 4,000ac of wild woodland along the west coast of Ireland and that the Wild Atlantic Rainforest Project will stretch from Cork to Donegal over eight sites.
They also said that up to 80% of Ireland used to be covered in wild forests of birch, pine and oak but today there is only 1% left and fragments of rainforests cling on in gullies, cliff faces and secluded islands.
Woodland in Cork
Hometree’s farm programmes coordinator, Ray Ó’Foghlu from Co. Cork said: “Some of the best land in Ireland is in Co. Cork, the heart of dairy country. It isn’t feasible for farmers to block out whole areas with trees.
“However, there are a variety of ways of integrating native trees that actually work for the farm system and we will be using our new location in Donoughmore to demonstrate the advantages.
“It can simply be planting lines or groups of trees in corners of fields or scattering individual trees throughout the pasture.
“Native trees have mutual benefits for the environment, for water quality and for biodiversity. There are also benefits for cattle who can shelter under the trees, they can also browse the foliage which gives them minerals they can’t get elsewhere at different times of the year,” he added.
There is now also a full-time seed collector for the nature restoration charity who visits remote valleys, sheltered hollows and ravines along Ireland’s west coast to collect ancient and rare seed specimens.