Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of new hectares entered into afforestation to date in 2021; the projected number for the full year; and the projected number for 2022. [50714/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Department provides funding under the Afforestation Scheme to incentivise the creation of new forests. Since the mid 1980s over 300,000 hectares of new forests have been created with financial supports from the EU and the state.

Forestry is supported under the Forestry Programme 2014-20  which has now been extended to end 2022, with generous 100% establishment grants, in addition to 15-year premiums for current afforestation scheme contracts and a tax-free asset on maturity.  We will be encouraging farmers, state bodies, communities and businesses to plant trees for both timber and to mitigate against the impacts of climate change.

All tree species sequester carbon which is only one of the many ecosystem services that trees provide. Forests planted on agricultural land help reduce overall emissions from the land use sector.  

The level of planting to end of September 2021 is 1,755 hectares. Afforestation licences have a validity period of three years, from date of issue. 

At present, there are approved licences issued, for sites ready and available to plant covering 5,700 hectares.  

I encourage anyone with a valid afforestation licence to contact their forester and arrange planting.  Once planted, they may apply for the first of 15 annual premiums.

It is clear that significant increases in afforestation will be required over the next  decade. I am aware that delays in issuing licences may be a contributory factor in terms of interest in planting.  We are addressing the backlog through the Project Woodland initiative and September was the highest month for licence issue since April 2019. 

Afforestation licences for almost 3,400 hectares have issued this year and we now have a dedicated team of 10 ecologists working on afforestation files ahead of the planting season. 

It is important that the Department receives good quality applications from applicants and that they respond to any requests for further information. 

Approximately 550 afforestation files have been referred to ecology for processing by an ecologist.  Officials have examined all these files and found that just over 10% of these files have supporting ecology habitat information. 

It was highlighted to forestry companies earlier in the summer they should examine their afforestation applications that are referred to the Ecology Unit, and to provide additional ecology information and engage an ecologist as required. 

While some companies have supplied this information, most applications referred to Ecology do not have this information and in many cases the Department will not be able to process the file without ecology information. 

Regarding projections for 2022, considering the voluntary nature of the Scheme, it is not possible to determine the area that will be planted. We are examining opportunities to further incentivise afforestation measures in the context of the next forestry programme and the next CAP and the Department will be engaging with all relevant stakeholders over the next 12 months.