The total area of new forestry planted in 2022 was 2,273 hectares, a little over a quarter of the Government’s target of 8,000 hectares annually.
For the third year in a row the total afforestation struggled to exceed 2,000 hectares in the State, according to the latest annual Forest Statistics Report published by the Department of Agriculture.
Two decades ago, some between 8,000 and 10,000 hectares annually were being planted in the State but the figures have fallen dramatically, particularly after 2017 when it was 5,536 hectares. Afforestation dropped to 2,434 hectares in 2020, 2,016 hectares in 2021, and 2,273 hectares in 2022.
Minister of State with responsibility for Forestry Pippa Hackett said that the forest estate had increased to 11.6 per cent of the total land area but acknowledged that progress was slow.
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“While these new forests planted in 2022 will ultimately form a valuable part of our national forest estate and will play an important role in sequestering carbon, providing timber and creating new habitats, last year’s level of planting is far below where we ultimately need to be,” she accepted.
The Department has said that the new €1.3 billion Forestry Programme, launched earlier this year, will be a game changer and will drive up the total area under forest significantly in the coming years.
The programme has started only in recent weeks as it took several months for the EU to decide that the scheme would not affect competition within the union.
“I am confident that the programme will mark a turning point for Irish forestry and will unlock the potential for the sector to get back to planting 8,000ha annually and more,” said Ms Hackett.
She said the supports for farmers in the programme, with 20 years of payments at rates increased by between 44 per cent and 66 per cent would restore the forestry sector.
Some 42 per cent of the new afforestation in 2022 was broadleaved trees. The incentives for broadleaves users the programme includes payments of €1,100 per hectare for native forests. “We can expect the proportion of broadleaves to grow further in each year of the new Programme,” she said.
Sinn Féin agriculture spokeswoman Claire Kerrane said the “report further underlined what was already known and that was that the Government were continuing to fail to deliver on forestry.
“The newly-published Forestry Sector statistics show that not only have key forestry metrics plummeted in recent years, they remain at some of the lowest levels of the past decade.
“For example, there was just 2,273 hectares of afforestation in 2022. This is compared with 6,652 hectares of afforestation in 2012,” she said.
“There is an annual target of 8,000 hectares of afforestation, yet we are looking at a combined total of 6,723 hectares for the past three years.
Ms Kerrane, a TD for Roscommon-Galway, said in 2017 there were 536 farmers involved in afforestation in the State but this number has dropped to just 76 as of 2022.
“The statistics published today make clear that this Government has mismanaged forestry. We desperately need the new Forestry Programme in place, and yet it remains nowhere to be seen,” she said.
Co Cork was the county with the highest afforestation in 2022 with a total of 400 hectares, with Clare (211 hectares) and Galway (209 hectares) next. Leitrim, despite its small population, was in the top six with 152 hectares.
A little under half of the new planting in Cork was of broadleaved species in contrast with Leitrim and Galway where conifers amounted for three quarters of planting; and Clare and Mayo, where conifers made up two-thirds of all plating.
The counties with the lowest planting rates were Dublin and Waterford, both of which recorded 3 hectares in 2022.
