Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 December 2023
30. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the amount of land afforested in 2020, 2021, 2022, and to date in 2023; the Government target for forestry licence output in 2023; the number of licences issued; the number of afforestation licences issued in 2023; the total hectarage of land licensed for new afforestation in 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55510/23]
View answerThe Forestry Programme 2023 -2027 has been approved by Government, and both the afforestation and forest roads schemes are open to applications, existing applications are being migrated over to these scheme as the applicants opt in. My Department has begun to issue afforestation and roads licences under the new Programme, while felling licences continued and continue to issue as normal.
Given we are now in a position to issue all licences, the publication of a new Forestry Licensing Plan can be expected very shortly. In 2024 the Department will continue to build on recent improvements to its licensing system. The Department will continue to outstrip demand by issuing more licences than it receives. The Department is ready to issue sufficient afforestation licences to meet its annual planting target of 8,000ha, but this is contingent on receiving enough applications to achieve this goal.
To date in 2023, my Department has issued 3,050 forestry licences of all types. This represents 1,380 private felling licences,1,372 Coillte felling licences, 218 forest road licences and 80 new afforestation licences (726 Ha’s).
In addition to the above, my Department has processed 90 (800 Ha’s) applications already approved under Forestry Programme 2014 – 2020 that hadn’t commenced planting and have now opted in to the new Forestry Programme 2023 – 2027. Approvals under the new Reconstitution of Ash dieback scheme (RADs) have begun with 155 approvals amounting to over 690 Ha’s. Finally, 11 approvals have been processed to date under the Native Tree Area Scheme amounting to 11.41 Ha’s.
There were 2,434 hectares planted in 2020, 2,016 hectares planted in 2021, 2,273 hectares planted in 2022 and 1,649 planted to date in 2023.
In addition to the figures outlined above and in recognition of the need for forestry activity to continue, pending the launch of the new Programme, earlier this year, my Department introduced an Interim Afforestation Scheme and an Interim Forest Road Scheme. In 2023, a total of 288 applications were approved under the Interim Afforestation Scheme, representing 1,750 hectares. Under the interim roads scheme, 159 approvals have issued representing 70,222 metres.
