Mobile masts to bogs, gravel to conifers
Almost 200 radio masts have been erected on Coillte lands, providing services to mobile phone operators, radio operators, and the emergency services.
The company operates the largest conifer nursery in western Europe, producing about 38 million plants annually, and supplies stone, sand, gravel and other aggregate-type deposits from several locations.
Frequently maligned for alleged damage to the environment, Coillte can nevertheless claim to be the only organisation in Europe to win sponsorship from the EU’s Environment directorate general for three life-nature conservation projects.
These include raised bog protection at sites in Kerry, Clare, Mayo, Donegal, the Ox Mountains in Sligo and the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the midlands.
Coillte also has the largest single bog restoration project in Ireland, aiming to rehabilitate 571 hectares of blanket bog at 14 sites in the midlands.
Coillte is also restoring 550 hectares of four different woodland types recognised under the EU habitats directive as being critically rare, not just in Ireland but from a European perspective. These are in counties Mayo, Clare, Sligo, Laois, Limerick, Tipperary, Galway, Cavan and Offaly.
