The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is “committed” to reducing forest cover in Special Protected Areas (SPAs) for hen harrier conservation purposes.
This is according to the ‘Hen Harrier Threat Response Plan’, developed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in collaboration with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH), the DAFM, and the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC).
The plan details that the DAFM recognises that open moorland is “prime hen harrier habitat and is committed, for hen harrier conservation purposes, to reducing forest cover and thereby increasing habitat area and creating linkages within between open areas in the SPAs”.
DAFM-Forestry’s position is that there will be no further afforestation within these SPAs until such time that the conservation status of the species is generally restored, the plan stated.
Hen harrier find young forest plantations attractive to breed in, but breeding success is compromised by the loss of open space as forest canopies close.
By ten years or so after planting, a forest is of little habitat value for hen harrier until clear-felling takes place.
Lightly grazed heath or bog, with some scrub, is the most suitable habitat for nesting hen harrier.
Long-term forest management strategy
Coillte is committed to extending the area of its estate that is managed primarily for biodiversity.
These commitments include:
- Enhancing and restoring biodiversity by increasing the area of the estate managed primarily for nature from 20% to 30% by 2025;
- Redesigning 30,000ha of peatland forest for climate and ecological benefits by 2050;
- Transforming areas of its forests so that 50% of its estate is managed primarily for nature in the long term.
There is significant scope within these commitments to initiate habitat restoration measures for the hen harrier, according to the ‘Hen Harrier Threat Response Plan’.
However, the implementation of the forestry actions needed to reverse the decline of hen harrier and the achievement of the conservation objectives will be challenging and potentially give rise to conflicts with the management of forestry practices that are aimed at minimising the effect on other sensitive environmental receptors, and for carbon storage.
Coillte have started undertaking feasibility studies and research to assess the implications of these for its forestry management in the SPAs in the coming years, as the objectives require significant restructuring of the forest to achieve optimal forest design at the landscape level for
this species.
Collaboration between NPWS and Coillte will be progressed in the Coillte estate in the Slieve Bloom Mountains SPA, with a view to improving the management of these lands for biodiversity and for Hen Harrier.
Consideration will be given to forest redesign and improving and restoring habitat for the species in strategically important areas of the estate. This pilot approach will provide a roadmap for similar approaches in other SPAs in due course.
Projections show that the extent of forest areas potentially used by hen harrier during the breeding season will continue to decline within all SPAs over the coming years, due to forest maturation.
An appropriate long-term forest management strategy covering all six SPAs is therefore required in order to reduce the impact of the closed canopy forest bottleneck, to increase the quality of foraging resources within the forest estate, to promote habitat linkage and to reduce the risks of depressed breeding productivity rates.
The plan also seeks to define areas that have a higher likelihood of containing nesting hen harrier and to continue to minimise the impacts of forestry-related disturbance operations in
sensitive breeding areas of the SPA, through appropriate procedures.