About 80,000 acres in the Kerry/west Limerick area and parts of north Cork are expected to be covered by measures being prepared to protect the threatened hen harrier.
A formal process for designating lower mountain, marshland and moorland in the southwest as a Special Protected Area (SPA) for hen harriers will get under way in the coming months, the Department of the Environment has confirmed.
It is understood the EU Commission is anxious the process gets started shortly. Ireland is obliged to take measures to protect the bird, listed for protection as an Annex 1 species in the EU Birds Directive.
However, wildlife experts warn there has been a flood of forestry applications in advance of the designation and the habitat of the harrier will be severely reduced when these plantations mature.
The bird of prey has suffered drastic decline with the loss of marsh and moorland since the 1970s. It is now mainly found in the north Cork, west Limerick and north Kerry region, with only about 130 pairs left.
It is over two years since proposals for the designation of areas were publicly mooted.
The proposals sparked a furore within the farming community because of the restrictions such a designation would have on wind farms and forestry.
At one stage, in west Limerick, over 800 farmers attended a public meeting on the issue, and the Kerryman newspaper in Tralee was sent a dead hen harrier.
Last year, a large 29-turbine wind farm at Knockacummer, Co Cork, was turned down on appeal by a heritage group to An Bord Pleanála because it was felt its scale would interfere with the birds.
Kerry County Council's own wind policy has designated a number of areas as suitable. Chief among these is the Stacks mountain area, a region important to the harrier.
Tim Burkitt, a conservation ranger with the Wildlife Service in north Cork/Kerry, said forestry applications were being pushed in "to beat the band" in advance of the SPA.
The harrier likes to hunt over willow scrub and gorse, and likes a mix of scrub and moorland. The type of forestry being put into much of the moorland area is Sitka spruce.
While the harrier could cope with young spruce plantations, in 10 years' time much of the habitat designated will be destroyed if all the forestry goes ahead, said Mr Burkitt.