Donal Hickey: Recovery in native trees

There are some signs that we may be moving away from a saturation of conifers towards more broadleaf and native trees. It is to be hoped that a new scheme by EU farm commissioner Phil Hogan to encourage farmers plant four acres each will favour copses of native species.

People who live in areas such as the highland territory bordering counties Kerry, Cork, and Limerick, with conifers all around, would be forgiven for thinking we’re completely over-forested. However, we’re away behind other EU countries. Only 10.5% of our land area is under trees compared to 38% elsewhere. The Government has been missing its tree-planting target in recent years.