An area of 945ha has been approved for afforestation by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) so far this year, according to latest figures.
Of this total, the DAFM approved 268ha of new plantings last month. This is significantly higher than in March 2023 when no new afforestation licences were issued.
The Forestry Licensing Dashboard for the week ending on Friday, March 29, 2024, shows that an area of 273ha has been planted so far this year.
While the area approved for planting to date in 2024 is significantly higher than last year, when only 789ha were approved for afforestation all year, licence output remains low.
Afforestation
In order to achieve the government’s annual planting target of 8,000ha set under the Climate Action Plan, the DAFM would need to issues licences for 667ha per month.
In addition to the 123 afforestation licences issued year-to-date, 40 licences that were previously approved are now approved under the new scheme and allow for 269ha of plantings.
Separate to the afforestation scheme, a total of 118 applications have been approved so far this year under the Native Area Tree Scheme (NTAS) allowing for 122ha of plantings.
The NTAS allows farmers to plant up to 1ha of native woodland without a licence, or up to 2ha if they have a suitable watercourse along which to plant a riparian native woodland.
Forestry licences
In the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, the DAFM issued 253 road licences which allow for the construction of 84km of new forest roads, 284 private and 212 Coillte felling licences.
Together those felling licences allow the felling of 5,832ha so far this year. Over the past week, 39ha were approved for thinning while 116ha were approved for clear felling.
Similarly to afforestation licences, the number of road licences issued by the DAFM is now significantly higher than last year when 22 licences were issued by the end of Q1 2023.