Ireland's Common Trees
The forests in Ireland today mainly consist of non-native tree species introduced over the past 200-300 years. These species have been favoured due to their productivity, especially in challenging environments such as wet, infertile, and exposed sites. Many of these species are conifers from the coastal regions of Washington and Oregon in the Northwest United States, which have climates similar to Ireland's, making them well-suited for local conditions.
The introduction of suitable species has provided Irish foresters with a wider range of options for matching trees to specific site conditions. Introduced trees often offer advantageous attributes such as resistance to harsh weather, low nutrient needs, fast growth rates, straight stems, and desirable timber properties. Selecting the right species for a particular site helps to ensure viable and sustainable reafforestation, which is critically important for both commercial forestry and carbon capture.
The use of non-native species in forestry mirrors the reliance on non-native species in Irish agriculture for food production. Currently, nearly all timber harvested annually in Ireland is derived from non-native species, a practice that has facilitated the development of a robust forest industry with an annual turnover of over 200 million euros. While the reliance on non-native species has been questioned by some environmental groups, in terms of timber supply and carbon capture there is no viable alternative in the medium term.
There is currently a shift to increasing the proportion of native species in the Irish reafforestation programme, with a greater focus on planting native species. Unfortunately, the overall collapse of afforestation in Ireland over the past decade, means that less native woodland is currently being established than was the case in the recent past. Despite Ireland being the least forested country in Europe, by some measures, the area under woodland is now shrinking for the first time since the Second World War.