Green Belt is delighted to announce the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine are now accepting new applications to establish forests and woodlands across Ireland.

The scheme, designed to run from 2023-2027, features numerous changes and differences to previous schemes.

Annual premiums are increased and are available for up to 20 years, as a farmer. There are 12 different options to consider, termed as Forest Types (FT). We expect FT1 - creation of native woodlands and FT12 - commercial planting with hardwood mix - to be the most popular. Annual premiums are €1,104 per hectare for FT1 and €780 per hectare for FT12.

Minister Pippa Hackett was understandably buoyant at the release identifying the many years of work that it has taken to get to this stage.

We look forward to the resurgence of a planting program and the invaluable benefits that trees, forests and woodlands bring to the country. Also noteworthy, is the fact that the forest owner will be in a position to trade their carbon under the carbon removal framework certificate to be issued shortly.

Get in touch with us to explore your options.

The EU carbon removal certification framework (CRCF) aims to scale up carbon removal activities and fight greenwashing by empowering businesses to show their action in this field.

Delivering on this potential, Irish forestry offers a local solution to so much of the nations emissions and our carbon offset targets. New planting, known as afforestation, is the most direct and measurable means to combat Irelands emissions. Irish forestry and woodland creation is established with the support of government grants and further supplemented by an annual premium, paid over a 15 year term to the land owner (20 years if that landowner qualifies as a farmer).

The established forestry and woodlands sequester carbon on an annual basis. This happens at different rates across the lifetime of the forest, but in figures published by TEAGASC, an estimate of annual average Carbon sequestered across 2 lifecycles of forestry is c. 3 tonnes of CO2 per hectare for Hardwoods and up to 7 tonnes of CO2 per hectare for a commercial forest. This includes harvested wood products, as this is both hugely important and essential to the valorisation of Irish forestry and Carbon accounting.

For Irish forest owners, especially those with recently planted or soon to be established forests, the carbon value in their forests can be a considerable source of additional income. Forestry premiums exhaust at 15 (or 20) years and from then to clearfell, for a commercial forest, income is through thinning - an important silvicultural intervention, but should not, by design, be overly lucrative. Therefore, additional income in the shape of traded carbon credits will be a very welcome and fruitful enterprise for those forest owners.

Creating a platform and framework for the legitimate and transparent trading of these credits has been a challenge to date. Validity and certainty over the merit of the credits has been a core issue. The proposed framework being developed by the EU will be welcome solution. As it develops and more information becomes available, Green Belt will provide all the relevant details to land and forest owners to allow them maximise their forestry returns.

In the meantime, should you have any questions, please contact Maurice Ryan on 0876753097 or by email at maurice@greenbelt.ie

Replanting a forest (Reforestation) is a legislative obligation on landowners. This means you must replant your forest post harvesting. Harvesting revenues are extremely lucrative and in recent times have yielded exceptional returns for forest owners. 

Green Belt has always worked with forest owners to deliver the most advantageous results for their forest. 

Recently many forest owners have made the decision to sell their land post harvest, and reap the rewards. There is no penalty for this and the replanting obligation passes to the new owner. 

There is growing interest in buying what we call 'Brown lands' for replanting. Some of the main reasons for this are that it means your money is active immediately - the licencing delays can lead to a lag of 18 months from land purchase to trees in the ground.

With a sustainability plan for the reforestation lands, there can be significant additionality in the Carbon sequestered in the forest and an improvement in the Biodiversity levels on its second rotation. For starters, the trees are a better quality tree and grow at a quicker rate - therefore sequestering more Carbon. 

We encourage the new land owners to practice as much as possible a chemical free establishment of their forest. This has obvious gains as it minimises leaching into watercourses and so on. Similarly, the establishment of riparian zones along waterways drastically reduces run off to almost zero from a forestry development.

The introduction of Biochar into the planting lines and blended with organic fertiliser is a huge benefit to the soils and to the trees. Biochar is a natural catalyst, designed to improve the active rate of fertiliser uptake by the plants through cation exchange, enhance the soil quality and improve the soil biodiversity. This is achieved by creating a comfort zone for microorganisms to exist and thrive within for extended periods of time - they will break down the available nutrients in the soil, and resist the biochar as it is too hard to break down (Biochar is about 80% pure carbon).

All of these factors either individually or collectively will improve the quality of the forestry under management, particularly in poorer soils. We believe that purchasing and managing reforestation lands is an excellent route to improve your own carbon footprint and to build team morale through planting activities.

To look at how indigenous forestry projects can help your ESG activities and manage your emissions,  contact our team today.

Maurice@greenbelt.ie or reception@greenbelt.ie

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine have made funds available to allow those with an active planting approval to establish their forest and woodlands. This is in lieu of the new program receiving approval from Europe.

Those with planting approval can either opt to go ahead under 'De Minimis' rules and avail of the new premiums - see rates below. For example, if you plant hardwoods, you could receive an annual premium of €1,103 per hectare for 20 years.

It is encouraging to see the facilitation of new planting ahead of the final agreements on the program. We are excited to see those with approvals get trees in the ground and to begin their afforestation journey.

If you would like to consider new planting, contact us here to learn how the Grants and Premium schemes work and how Green Belt can help you find and secure the right lands for your project.

Green Belt featured in todays edition of the Irish Farmers Journal. We would like to thank Donal Magner and Noel Bardon for their time, effort and commitment in spending time with us to crate the feature and for their ongoing efforts to promote private forestry across Ireland.

The industry has seen some very challenging times recently, but the future is abundantly positive if and when some pieces fall into place.

We have been here for 40 years and fully intend to continue to deliver and grow and improve over the next 40 years. Forestry will continue to develop and other income generation and environmental support elements will flourish as we ex;plore and encourage further uses for timber.

We would like to thank everyone who has been part of our journey for the last 40 years. It has been a lot of fun, some times tricky, but always rewarding.

Details are emerging on the new Forestry Program, launched by the DAFM with Minister Pippa Hackett and Minister Charlie McConalogue.

While all the details are yet to be confirmed in Europe, in brief, we can confirm Native Woodlands will receive a tax free annual premium of €1,103 per hectare and that is now to be paid each year for 20 years, for farmers. this represents an increase of 66% on previous premium payments.

If you take an average planting area of 8 hectares (20 acres), a farmer will now receive €220,600 in annual premiums, tax free over 20 years.

It seems all forestry planting categories are seeing an uplift in premiums of 40% upwards to 66%.

New schemes to be encouraged include Rewilding land with emergent woodland and in Rewetting proposals under a Forests for Water scheme which will attract an annual premium of €1,142 per hectare.

Stay tuned for more details.

Green Belt has worked in communities across Ireland for 40 years. Our foresters live and work in these communities. So, it is really important that we can work with local community groups, County Councils and businesses all over Ireland to create woodlands and amenities for all to enjoy.

There are government grants and supports to help these projects take off and we have a network of local, Irish businesses that can also provide assistance to certain projects.

Get in touch with us today to develop your community project and amenity woodland. And have you considered your company hosting a Tree Planting Day? A superb way to spend time together in the outdoors and do something completely different!

Green Belt has been delighted to be celebrating across 2022 our 40 years of planting trees (and more) in Ireland.

We are running a photography competition each month which is proving popular - check out our instagram for that!

We also came together as a group to create a memorable video, where the great energy within the company was clear to see. You can watch it here!

The DAFM have issued the following status warning due to the high temperatures forecast this week: Take care and be extra vigilant!

Condition Orange – High Fire Risk Warning Effective From 1200hrs 14/07/2022 Effective Period Expires 1200hrs 20/07/2022 Arising from current weather patterns a high fire risk is deemed to exist in all areas where hazardous fuels such as dead grasses and shrub fuels such as heather and gorse exist. A high-pressure ridge currently located to the south west of Ireland will move northwards during the lifespan of this notice and influence Southerly airflows with high air temperatures low to moderate humidity and moderate windspeeds as the weekend progresses. Members of the public intending to visit forests and other recreational sites are reminded to adhere to regulations regarding fire use. Forest visitors should not use barbeques or open fires at any stage. Vehicles must not be parked at site entrances or impede emergency service access to forest roads. Fire risk is expected to peak on Sunday, July 17th. Where fires occur, fire behaviour is likely to be influenced by moderate windspeeds in the 15-25kmh region. Higher windspeeds above the critical 30km/h threshold may be experienced in southern areas. Fire behaviour will be moderated by increased live fuel availability and high live fuel moisture levels in upland areas.

Green Belt continued with our tree planting days, this time in St Jarlath's College in Tuam, Co Galway.
Our local forester, Mike Moroney was on hand to deliver the 50 Native Irish Tree's and to guide the TY students in the best way to plant the tree's. This is Green Belt's second year supporting this really wonderful schools initiative, for their Eco UNESCO Project 'The Tree Amigos'.

Thank you for having us St Jarlath's and we look forward to watching those tree's grow with you and the community you support.