There is no inherent private property right to greenhouse gas emissions or removals by forests, whether on lands held by the State or privately owned. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine provides grant aid for the establishment of a wide range of tree planting measures which play an important role in environmental protection and removing and storing carbon from the atmosphere.
Forests which are 0.1 hectares or more in size, have the capacity to reach at least five metres in height and with a minimum canopy cover of at least 20% are accounted and reported under Ireland's international reporting requirements under the forest land use categories. Any existing and new tree planting measures proposed which satisfy these criteria will be reported and accounted against Ireland's climate change targets by the State.
The EU Green Deal and farm to fork strategy will examine ways to incentivise farmers to encourage carbon farming initiatives. Forests and tree planting measures play a positive role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Any existing and proposed tree planting measures will be targeted at protecting the environmental and removing carbon dioxide form the atmosphere.
