Francis Noel Duffy
Question:522. Deputy Francis Noel Duffy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the breakdown of species in the forest cover of approximately 11-12%. [22428/23]
View answerTuesday, 16 May 2023
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The national forest estate now stands at 11.6% of the total land area, with a wide variety of forest types present. Nationally, conifer species are the dominant species present, representing 69% of the forest area while broadleaved species accounted for 31%.
The share of broadleaf species nationally increased by 5.9% between 2006 and 2022. Sitka spruce is the most common species, occupying 44.6% of the total forest area. The results from the recent National Forest Inventory is available on my Department's website and contains a range of information on the forest estate.
The composition of the total forest area in 2022 is presented in the table below.