Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 1 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Forest Policy and Strategy (Resumed): Discussion

Mr. Mark Carlin:

On the biodiversity piece, there are many funds already operating in Ireland so this is not anything new. Although it has a commercial focus in terms of mixed woodland, a third of the planting will be native woodland. When we take that, along with the ambition that we announced last year that all new forestry associated with Coillte would be 50:50 in terms of native woodland and more productive species like spruce and pine, which are important for housing and the economy, it is a good mix going forward. We also then look at the existing areas of biodiversity that we have in the Coillte estate, where we manage 20% of our forests primarily for biodiversity. That is going to be very quickly increased to 30% in the next couple of years, with a long-term ambition that 50% of our estate will be managed primarily for nature and biodiversity. What we are going to be doing there is not just classifying those areas of the estate; we are actually going to be carrying out restoration projects, whether that is under planting with native woodland or improving the hydrology to improve the biodiversity value in our estate. It is a mix of trying to deliver the multiple benefits with these new forests but also with the existing forest estate which we manage as well.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.