Just over 60% of the afforestation licences promised by the Department of Agriculture will be delivered in 2022 unless there is a major improvement in output.

A total of 103 afforestation licences were issued during January and February, according to the latest figures from the Department’s forestry licensing dashboard.

This means that 52 afforestation licences per month are currently being issued, which puts the Department’s forestry section on track to deliver less than 650 this year.

However, the Department has set a target of 1,040 afforestation licences to be issued in 2022.

Target

Private forestry groups pointed out that the Forestry Service would have to issue at least 20 afforestation licences per week to reach the 1,040 target for 2022, but this was only achieved on two occasions in 2021.

The Social, Economic, Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland (SEEFA) said the dashboard results suggested that the Department’s performance so far this year on licences was significantly off where it needed to be to meet its own “modest targets”.

“The weekly dashboard is a mirror image of the Department’s performance [on forestry] for a decade now; repeated failure, and literally no accountability,” SEEFA said.

The licencing system designed by the Forest Service remains dysfunctional

SEEFA also questioned why the Department issued 202 felling licences to Coillte in February, but only 132 felling licences to the private sector, mainly farmers, during the same period.

“This is a difference of 70 licences in one month, with farmers getting 40% of the licences issued and Coillte 60%,” SEEFA stated.

Despite there being a more even distribution of felling licences between private foresters and Coillte in January - Coillte got 129 licences and private foresters 117 - SEEFA still maintained that the licensing system was loaded against farmers and other private foresters.

It insisted that the current regime will have to change for the forestry sector to meet future planting targets.

“The licencing system designed by the Forestry Service remains dysfunctional and cannot provide enough afforestation licences to meet Government targets,” SEEFA claimed.