The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) issued 16 afforestation licences last week relating to over 150ha.
This marks a “record” weekly performance in 2024, according to the Social, Economic and Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland (SEEFA).
The latest forestry dashboard, published by the department, shows that 309 afforestation licences corresponding to 2,590ha have been issued so far this year.
The data shows that 415 afforestation applications have been received by the department up to last Friday (August 2).
The department said that 909ha of land had been afforested up to last Friday, which was up almost 40ha on the previous week.
The figures for afforestation planted in 2024 only reflect afforestation that has been paid at first grant stage this year to date, including under the Native Area Tree Scheme (NTAS)
Licences
SEEFA said that last week was also the year’s “best [forest] road licencing performance”, with 25 licences being issued by the department.
Up to August 2, DAFM had received 439 applications for forest roads, while 526 licences have been issued year-to-date (YTD) for 195km of roads.
“Whilst these figures are still off the pace required to grow the industry, and the afforestation licences are nowhere near enough to claw back the year-to-date underperformance, we ask that the government learn from this week’s improvement to try and improve further,” SEEFA said.
However, the association said that last week was one of the worst weeks of the year when it came to private felling licences, as just 9 were issued.
647 private felling licences have been issued by the department YTD, with 558 applications submitted.
30 Coillte felling licences were issued last week, bringing the total number of such licences issued YTD to 515.
SEEFA claimed that “the licensing backlog continues to grow”, despite Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue recently stating that his department has capacity to issue sufficient licences to meet the annual target of 8,000ha of new forests.
“Any improvements seen this year have been continually accompanied by failures elsewhere. The industry needs to grow in all aspects, together,” SEEFA said.
Forestry
The data also shows that 522 licences have been granted for the Reconstitution of Ash Dieback Scheme so far this year, covering 1,900ha.
There has been 268 permits issued for the NTAS (293ha) and 118 for the Woodland Improvement Scheme (WIS) covering 557ha.
The data shows that 35 afforestation appeals have been received by the department so far this year, along with 16 tree felling appeals and 6 in relation to forestry roads.