An external review of the Department of Agriculture’s forestry approvals process is to be commissioned by Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Andrew Doyle.

Minister Doyle has commissioned Jim Mackinnon CBE, former chief planner with the Scottish government, to analyse the process undertaken by the Department of Agriculture in the approval of forestry planting applications.

I believe that it will be useful for an external party to conduct this review so that we can ensure our process is efficient and effective

It is expected that the review would be completed by the end of 2019 and there will be an opportunity for all stakeholders to input to the review when it gets under way.

Referring to the commissioning of the review, Minister Doyle said: “I have seen a similar analysis carried out by Mr Mackinnon for the Scottish government on the approval process in Scotland, the results of which appeared to assist in terms of increased afforestation levels.

“I believe that it will be useful for an external party to conduct this review so that we can ensure our process is efficient and effective and continues to meet the expectations of all stakeholders,” he said.

Forestry Programme implementation

The minister made the announcement about the review at a meeting of the Forestry Programme Implementation Group held on Monday in Dublin.

The group was established by Minister Doyle in May 2018 to monitor the implementation of the National Forestry Programme and its group comprises the forestry sector, State organisations and the environmental pillar.

The group also received updates on the implementation of the Forestry Programme. In particular it noted the uptake of the continuous cover forestry (CCF) initiative launched in January 2019, and the interest in the Forestry Knowledge Transfer group scheme which closed for applications in June 2019.

Fully subscribed

The CCF initiative, which had been made available on a pilot basis, was fully subscribed with 30 applications received across 12 countries. The Forestry KT scheme also proved popular with the formation of 40 groups approved, an increase on the 33 such groups funded under the comparable scheme in 2018.

Minister Doyle said: “We continually seek to support our forest owners to enable them to manage their forests, both from an environmental point of view and also to maximise the return on their investments. I have also noted a significant increase in uptake of the Forest Road Scheme, which indicates that those forest owners will soon be earning cash from the thinning of their crop.

“This underlines the way in which returns from forestry can complement other farm enterprises and that farm forestry merits serious consideration.”

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