A survey of Ireland's forests, the most comprehensive since the foundation of the State, is under way and is expected to take up to 18 months.
The National Forest Inventory will record and assess the composition and condition of the State's forestry, both public and private. There is no accurate inventory of the entire national forest, and detailed information on the composition and condition of much of the private forestry is unknown.
At the end of the 19th century the area of woodland and forest cover in Ireland was estimated to be approximately 1 per cent of the national land area.
By 1985, forest and woodland cover had increased to approximately 420,000 hectares, or 6 per cent of the total land area of the State, with most of this new planting undertaken by the State itself.
The mid-1980s saw a significant increase in private forest development, with the introduction of EU-funded grant schemes aimed at encouraging private landowners, mainly farmers, to become involved in forestry.
As a result, the area of national forest area in the Republic has now increased to almost 700,000 hectares, or 10 per cent of the land area. Of this, approximately 45 per cent is in private ownership and 55 per cent is in the ownership of Coillte Teoranta.
John Browne, the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, said it was vital to facilitate the sustainable development of forestry here in relation to timber volumes, and plant and animal species for the management of the national forest resource.
Approximately 2,200 sample forest plots have been selected at random throughout the country, with the number of plots in each county relative to the size of the county and the level of forestry.
The Forest Service has recruited six professional foresters. Over the next 18 months they will be collecting data from all the sample plots in every county in the country.
Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan recently announced a €124 million package for forestry in 2005. This was the biggest allocation ever made for forestry.
The recent reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is expected to bring about a major upsurge in afforestation on farms as farmers can plant half their land without any impact on their single payment.