The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has issued a further 13 licences for afforestation in the second week of 2024, according to the department’s Forestry Dashboard.
The dashboard shows that 13 afforestation licences were issued in the week ending Friday, January 12, bringing to 16 the total number of afforestation licences for the year so far.
Meanwhile, the second week of the year also saw 18 licences issued for forest road construction, 29 for private felling, and 30 for felling of Coillte forestry (59 for all felling).
For the first two weeks of the year combined, these figures are 25, 40, and 45 respectively (85 for all felling).
Of the 59 felling licences issued so far this month, 7 were for thinning and 52 were for clear felling.
The number of afforestation and roads licences issued this month are already significantly ahead of the whole month of January last year, while the number of felling licences (private and Coillte-owned) issued this month amount to approximately one third for the amount of felling licences issued in the whole of January of last year (around 250).
According to the dashboard, no licences with input from ecologists have been issued yet in January. The dashboard outlines that the targeted amount of such licences to be issued each month (excluding Coillte felling licences) is around 220.
The afforestation licences issued so far this month amount to 132ha of new forestry (this figure reflects afforestation that has been paid at first grant stage this year to date).
That afforestation figure is already ahead of the whole of January 2023, when the figure was 47ha for the month.
The roads licences issued this month pertain to 9km of new forest roads, compared to 3km in all of January 2023.
Felling licences issued in the last two weeks amount to 879ha, or 292,162m3 of timber.
Since the new Forestry Programme commenced in September, 99 afforestation licences, which had been granted under the previous programme but required reapproval under the new one, have been issued, equating to 847ha.
Under the Forestry Programme, the Reconstitution of Ash Dieback Scheme (RADS) has seen 231 applications approved, amounting to 941ha, and the Native Tree Area Scheme (NTAS) – which opened in early October – has seen 42 applications approved, equating to 45ha.