Inventory shows Cork has highest share of national forest area
The NFI booklet showed that Co Cork has the highest share of national forest area at 83,619 ha or 11.6% of the total forest estate.
Counties with the highest proportion of national forest area are primarily distributed along the western and south-western seaboards. In terms of forest cover as a proportion of the total county land area, Co Wicklow has the highest cover at 17.7%.
Tom Hayes, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said: “Our forests play a pivotal role in carbon sequestration. The NFI has been crucial in documenting the contribution of our forests in achieving Ireland’s Kyoto target. Without Ireland’s forests the first Kyoto commitment period target (ie 2008 to 2012) would not have been met.”
The minister also highlighted the large uptake in private thinning since 2006, with an extra 20,000ha thinned.
“We are finally beginning to realise the potential of our State supported afforestation schemes; the resulting enhanced thinning volumes represents an increasing source of raw material for the processing sector, a valuable source of revenue for private owners and a source of additional employment in harvesting, transport and downstream processing.”
The inventory involved a detailed nationwide field survey of Ireland’s forests and assessed composition, condition and change in the entire national forest estate, both public and private.
The information encompasses the traditional parameters such as area, growing stock and species composition in the national forest estate as well as information with regard to biodiversity, health and vitality, carbon content and soil type.
Changes in Ireland’s forests can be assessed for the first time through comparisons with the initial NFI, completed in 2006.
In terms of forest ownership the share of private forestry is increasing with 53% in public ownership and 47% in private ownership; this represents an increase in the private forestry estate of 4% in the last six years.
Conifer forest is the dominant forest type representing 74.2% of all forests. Broadleaved forests represent 25.8%. The main tree species is Sitka spruce occupying 334,560 ha or 52.5% of all species.
Fewer than 30% of Ireland’s forests are single species forests. Over half (56%) of the national forest estate is less than 20 years old due to State-supported afforestation.
