Reclaiming ancient forests for our future

The mountain lies with its paws in the sea: rough slopes and rocky creggans tilting down to the shore. Around them, what is left of native oak and hazel scrub - low forest, to be ecologically polite - crouches to the shelter of cliffs and ravines. Here, within farm fences, are Hobbit grottos full of ferny oaks, groves of aspens and silver-barked hollies; even, if I could find it again, a prostrate clump of juniper.

From such windswept vestiges to the lofty, ivy-clad stands of oak and ash in old midland demesnes such as Charleville, the remaining native woodlands of Ireland have survived for centuries - sometimes, indeed, in continuity from the island's ancient forests. In spring, the wildflowers in their shade (wood anemone, bluebell, wild garlic) are tokens of a venerable past.

About 5,700 hectares of these woods are protected in national parks and nature reserves, and another 6,500 hectares are within the proposed Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). But up to two-thirds of the woods remain in private hands. Many are invaded by livestock and deer which reduce them to gaunt and geriatric copses, others are choked with rhododendron; in neither do seedlings stand much of a chance. Now, new pressures of development - motorways, landfills, suburban estates - threaten their very survival.

The immense ecological value of the woods lies in their own biodiversity - the often rich and unique mix of species, growing together over time - and in their genetic potential as sources of native seed for planting new broadleaf woodland. They also serve as corridors and steppingstones for native species. Their long neglect speaks of the loss of silviculture. None of our native woodland is untouched by man and at the heart of the oldest woods are immense stools of oak, several metres across, which were coppiced for successive crops of boughs. But the affinity with trees and their sympathetic use vanished from rural Ireland with the break-up of the estates. To restore a close-to-nature silviculture is one of the objectives of the new Native Woodland Scheme, to be launched before the summer by the Forest Service of the Department of Marine and Natural Resources.

The scheme's overriding emphasis is on pro-active conservation of existing woods - getting them fenced against sheep and deer and cleared of rhododendron and laurel; and coppicing here and there to let in the light to the forest floor. Along with this, come grants for growing new native woodland for timber, following traditional, low-intensity systems and keeping continuous cover.

The grant package, funded under the National Development Plan with support from the EU, will initially run until the end of 2006. It is open to private owners, as well as to Duchas and Coillte, which hold many of the most important woodland sites. A summary of the scheme from the office of Hugh Byrne, the Minister of State for forestry, spells out the two elements. The first, for conservation and enhancement, aims at 15,000 hectares of existing woodland, with cost-based grants of up to £3,500 per hectare. The second, with a similar target area for new native woodlands, gives up to £5,000 per hectare. Farmers will get their standard afforestation premium for 20 years and both elements will also attract an ecological premium per hectare per year, indefinitely.

A lot of thought must have gone into this, primarily from the Woodlands of Ireland group, which also developed the People's Millennium Forests project. Funded between the Heritage Council, the Forest service and Duchas, it employs a project manager, John O'Reilly, and has a broad core group of experts including ecologists from Duchas and Coillte and university botanists such as Dr Daniel Kelly of Trinity College and Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington of NUI Galway.

The challenge is to protect the best woods, find the ecological potential in others and help to create new ones, all with biodiversity as the priority. The Forest Service and Duchas will work together in assessing applications and the scheme will pay for a detailed, site-specific management plan drawn up by an ecologist. Each project under the scheme must aim to reinstate or reinforce the type of native woodland that is natural to the location, so that even sites in conservation areas - SACs and NHAs (Natural Heritage Areas) - will be eligible.

Each part of the scheme will include 1,000 hectares of riparian trees, with the aim of creating riverbank bio-corridors between isolated woodlands, buffering rivers from pollution, and feeding insects to the fish. Thus, alder, birch and willow are welcomed to the roster of native trees acceptable under the scheme, along with a certain percentage of minor species such as rowan, bird cherry and spindle-tree. A heavy emphasis on using native seed (and, in conservation woodlands, seed or regenerated seedlings from the locality) is clearly going to create problems. It will take some years to build up adequate supplies of seed stock, and volunteers such as those from Crann and Conservation Volunteers of Ireland are already collecting acorns from sessile oaks and native hazelnuts as the seed in most urgent demand. The long-term ideal will be to have a network of nurseries able to produce certified local seed stock.

Many of the ecological essentials of the Native Woodlands Scheme are echoed in the positively uplifting Forestry Biodiversity Guidelines, prepared by Dr Susan Iremonger for the Forest Service. Here is sustainable forestry with a decent mix of species, a more natural structure, and a conscious provision for wildlife - even dead trees to support their special insects.

The Native Woodland Trust continues to focus the concerns of voluntary groups, for ancient woods in particular, through its website (www.nativewoodtrust.ie) and newsletters (inquiries to Jim Lawlor, email info@nativewoodtrust.ie or at Stoneybrook, Kilteel, Co Kildare).

Crann will get you out in the woods through events offered at www.mde.ie/ crann. The Forestry Biodiversity Guidelines are free from the Forest Service, Department of the Marine and Natural Resources, Leeson Lane, Dublin 2.