Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Forestry and Climate Change: Discussion

Mr. Mark McAuley:

To answer Deputy Corcoran Kennedy's question about the average size of a forest, the average private forest is approximately 7 ha. Private forests account for approximately half of all forest. We have tens of thousands of very small forests, which has an implication for how they are managed and what the return on them needs to be for the owner. One must be quite careful about how one manages that because these are very small forests.