A total 1,651ha of forestry was planted in 2023, the Department of Agriculture’s forestry licencing dashboard for 2023 shows.

The Government has fallen almost 80% short of its planting target of 8,000ha for the year as is set out in the climate action plan.

The figures for afforestation planted in 2023 reflect afforestation that has been paid at first grant stage this year to date only, the Department said.

ADVERTISEMENT

Last year was the poorest performing year for both afforestation licences and the area planted over the last four years.

Approvals

At 789ha, the area approved for planting in 2023 is down over 3,000ha on 2022, when 4,972ha was approved for planting.

The forestry dashboard shows that in 2021, 4,246ha was approved for planting and in 2020, 4,342ha was approved for planting.

Separately, the Department outlined that 1,750ha worth of forestry was approved under the afforestation de minimis scheme.

This scheme bridged the gap between the old forestry programme in the last CAP and the current forestry programme, which took months to be approved by the European Commission. Therefore, in total, 2,539ha of forestry was approved for planting.

Looking at the dashboard for the area planted to forestry over the last number of years, there was a big fall off in the area planted last year.

Compared with the 1,651ha planted last year, in 2022 this figure was 2,273ha and in 2021 it was 2,016ha. The year 2020 was the best for planting out of the last four years, with 2,435ha planted.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture is targeting that 4,200 new forestry licences will be issued in 2024 and retains its 8,000ha target.