New Woodland Improvement Scheme offering up to €1,200 per hectare
Forest owners can choose from five different elements in the scheme: thinning and tending; agroforestry maintenance; continuous cover forestry; coppice and coppice with standards; and seed stand management.
A new Woodland Improvement Scheme has been launched.
The scheme offers financial support to forest owners for sustainable forest management.
Owners can benefit up to €1,200 per hectare to thin and tend their forest, with Minister of State Pippa Hackett describing the grants as "generous".
"Our forests bring big benefits for our climate, environment and nature. Through the Forestry Programme, this new scheme supports forest owners to deliver these benefits," Ms Hackett said.
"I’m delighted that we can reward timber growers and forest owners in this way, and that we can enhance our existing woodlands through sustainable forest management practices. I encourage people to apply to the scheme to maximise the value of their forests.”
The Woodland Improvement Scheme aims to support sustainable forest management that can bring environmental and climate benefits.
It also aims to protect biodiversity by supporting forest owners to transition from even-aged forest management to closer-to-nature forestry.
Forest owners can choose from five different elements in the scheme: thinning and tending; agroforestry maintenance; continuous cover forestry; coppice and coppice with standards; and seed stand management.
Those forest owners who applied for thinning and tending and continuous cover forestry under the previous Woodland Improvement Scheme, and who have not yet received approval, are being written to by the Department of Agriculture and will have the opportunity to opt-in to the new scheme at the improved rates.
Likewise, those with existing approvals under these elements, and who have not commenced work, will be offered the opportunity to opt-in to the new scheme and avail of the new rates.
The new overall Forestry Programme was launched in September, offering new afforestation grant rates up to 66% higher than the previous programme.
The programme also extends annual afforestation payments to farmers from 15 years to 20.
This week, the department also published its forestry licensing plan for 2024.
The plan estimates that the department will issue 4,200 new licences in 2024.
Ms Hackett said that since the new programme opened in September, 73 afforestation licences have been approved, totalling 593 hectares.
"In addition, we have processed 92 applications already approved under the Forestry Programme 2014-2020 that hadn’t commenced planting and have now opted in to the new Forestry Programme 2023-2027," Ms Hackett said.
"Those licences cover an area of 808 hectares, meaning a total land area of 1,401 hectares has been made available for planting at the higher grant and premium rates since the opening of the new programme."
Farmers account for 84% of applicants to the new afforestation scheme. To date, 46% of new applicants are choosing to plant spruce, with a 20% mix of broadleaf trees, and 43% are choosing to plant native forests.
Since the small planting native tree area scheme went live in October, the department has issued 13 approvals.
On average, the department is issuing these approvals less than three weeks after receiving applications, it said.
"Licence output is ultimately demand-led, and the licensing plan reflects that. I am very confident that with the additional resources my department has put in place and building on the efficiencies made to date, we will continue to outstrip demand in 2024 by issuing more licences than the number of applications we receive," Ms Hackett continued.
"By way of example, to December 15 this year, the department had received 1,970 applications for a felling licence and issued 2,801 felling licences, so the capacity to outstrip demand is there."
