Coillte, Ireland’s semi-state forestry company received permission to afforest just over 61ha in 2023, recent figures have shown.
Under Coillte’s Forest Estate Strategic Land Use Plan 2023-2050, it is an objective of Coillte to enable the creation of 100,000ha over the lifetime of this plan.
The 2023 afforestation figures were provided by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, upon being asked by Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice on how many hectares Coillte got permission to afforest in 2023, by county.
A breakdown by county of the number of hectares Coillte received permission to plant in 2023 is shown in the table below.
County No. of applications Hectares Tipperary 1 34.91 Cork 1 18.32 Roscommon 1 1.5 Galway 1 6.93 Total 4 61.66
The minister confirmed that Coillte, along with other public landowners, “may now avail of both grants and premiums under the new Afforestation Scheme 2023 – 2027” which opened on September 6, 2023.
Minister McConalogue has said that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is ready to issue sufficient afforestation licences to meet the annual forestry planting target of 8,000ha.
In 2023, a total of 288 applications for 1,750 hectares were approved under the Interim Afforestation Scheme.
In January, Minister McConalogue announced that “1,599 hectares have been approved for afforestation since the new scheme opened in September“.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity, Pippa Hackett, has launched the new Native Woodland Conservation (NWC) Scheme aimed at supporting the restoration and conservation of existing native woodlands.
The scheme has been developed and implemented in partnership with Woodlands of Ireland, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the Heritage Council, Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) and other native woodland stakeholders.
The NWC Scheme looks to provide support to woodland owners to tackle “under-management” of native woodland through appropriate restoration measures, which will be identified following an assessment of the woodland and its needs by an ecologist and a registered forester.
The grant rates under the new scheme announced by Minister Hackett today are €6,000/ha for private high forest and €3,000/ha for public forest, as well as an ecosystems services premium payment of €500/ha/year for seven years.