Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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132. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine how Coillte now takes biodiversity into consideration in its work following the closing of Coillte Nature; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36512/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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Coillte was established as a commercial state company with private limited status under the Forestry Act, 1988, to become custodian and manager of the national forest estate.

Coillte’s mandate is set out in Section 12 of the Forestry Act 1988 and provides, inter alia, that a principal object of the company is to carry on the business of forestry and related activities on a commercial basis, and in accordance with efficient silvicultural practices. The focus at the time when the company was established was to put the estate in the charge of a company that would realise its potential and support wood production. Coillte is currently managing 440,000 hectares of land (7% of the total area of the Republic of Ireland).

Coillte's role has evolved over time to reflect the company’s important role in addressing the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the forestry sector and our rural economy.

It is Government policy that Coillte, as the State forestry company, should play a leading role in addressing our climate change and biodiversity challenges and they have responded to this in their Strategic Vision for their Future Forest Estate. This vision aims to deliver multiple benefits from its forests and bring more focus to climate action, setting ambitious new targets on biodiversity and recreation, while continuing to deliver for the forest and wood products industry.

Coillte has indicated that their afforestation ambition is to enable the creation of new forests providing a carbon sink of 18m tonnes of CO2. Coillte will also manage its existing forest estate to capture an additional 10m tonnes of CO2 by 2050. They intend to increase the area of its forest estate being managed primarily for nature from 20% to 50% in the long term, by enhancing and restoring biodiversity and planting new forests, half of which will be native woodlands

A total of 90,000 hectares, or the equivalent of one-fifth of Coillte’s forest estate, is currently managed primarily for biodiversity. Coillte has the ambition to manage 30% of its estate primarily for nature and biodiversity by the end of 2025. Coillte’s decision to absorb the work of Coillte Nature into its main Forest Division will not interrupt any of the Coillte Nature projects that have been ongoing, and its reorganisation will not impact negatively on the objectives set out in the Coillte Strategic Vision and Strategy for its forest estate.