The Department of Agriculture has rejected the suggestion that Ireland’s forest estate is a net emitter of greenhouse gases following media commentary this week suggesting otherwise.

In a statement, the Department said Ireland’s forests are not a net emitter of greenhouse gases and will continue to be a significant sink for C02 over the next decade.

“Ireland’s forests are and remain a substantial and growing store for carbon dioxide, and recent suggestions which claim otherwise, are misleading insofar as they are looking only at one subset of the estate,” said the Department.

“Ireland’s forests are categorised as two different types for this exercise - either ‘Afforested land’ or ‘Managed Forest Land’. While the Managed Forest Land area, because of particular circumstances and timing, will be a small emitter over the upcoming period, the amount in question will be far outweighed by what the rest of the estate is storing and sequestering,” it added.

Replanting

The Department said that Managed Forest Land will be a small net source of approximately 0.1m tonnes of CO2 per year up to 2025. However, it said it is important to recognise that forests are replanted after harvesting and as forests mature the projection is that these forests will return to being a sink.

The Department said that afforested land, which is forestry less than 30 years old from 2021 to 2030, will continue to be a significant sink for carbon dioxide, sequestering well over 1m tonnes of CO2 per year up to 2025.

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