COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, November 08, 2021

QUESTION NO 19.

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the Chief Executive to comment and give a detailed report on The Minister for Agriculture and the Minister of State with responsibility for Forestry at the departments new scheme to fund the creation of new native woodland on public lands and how the council proposes to meet this need including preserving current Woodlands already in SDCC?

REPLY:

The purpose of the Woodland Creation on Public Lands Scheme is to encourage Public Bodies to establish new native woodlands on suitable bare land.

The Scheme aims to conserve nature by developing permanent, non-commercial woodlands on public land that will deliver the following benefits:

The first step in the process is to identify a potential site or sites within the public land bank, which if developed into a native woodland, would advance SDCC’s own targets regarding the Sustainable Development Goals, corporate social responsibility, climate targets, etc. The site must also be suitable from a ‘silvicultural’ perspective to grow a new woodland, and also from an environmental perspective, so that negative impacts of other valuable habitats and species are avoided.

South Dublin County Council have commenced a Green Infrastructure Strategy and a Parks and Open Spaces Strategy for the county that will map areas of Green Infrastructure at a strategic level and help the council identify the optimal locations for retention and protection of existing elements of Green Infrastructure (including woodlands), the reinforcement of existing elements that require augmentation or the creation of new Green Infrastructure links and hubs (which can also include woodlands). The Parks and Open Spaces strategy will also examine our public lands at the county wide level and make similar recommendations on how we best develop and manage lands within public ownership and provide the optimal balance between our provision of active and passive recreation and provision and protection of visual amenity and protection and enhancement of biodiversity and environmental habitats.

The Council’s tree management strategy for the period 2015 to 2020 ‘Living with trees’ is being reviewed at present and will be replaced with a new policy document.  The strategy currently deals with the planting and maintenance of trees in on-street locations, it does not consider trees in park or urban woodland settings.  These areas are included in the scope of the review of the strategy and will form part of the new strategy.  Work is due to be carried out to establish the extent of existing woodlands in SDCC ownership, these areas will be mapped in the strategy and this will help to identify areas where there is potential for urban woodlands to be extended or newly developed. The conversion of any open space area to woodland has to be carefully assessed and managed to ensure unintended consequences do not result. Quite a number of SDCC’s parks and open spaces contain species-diverse meadowlands that are important from a biodiversity point of view and support species that do not thrive in a woodland setting; such as protected flora and fauna species, ground nesting birds etc. 

The Council's Climate Change Action Plan contains a number of actions under the Nature Based Solutions section which will help to increase tree canopy cover in the County into the future.  These include the following actions -

The Public Realm Section seeks to balance the improvement of the environment and increase in bio-diversity and tree planting with the requirement to provide and manage active recreation and safe movement through our parks and open spaces. SDCC plants in the region of 1,500 trees in on-street and open space locations with a budget of approximately €150,000 provided annually for this work.  This planting is intended to be additional to that planned tree planting programme, details of which are presented to the Council's area committees in October and November.

South Dublin County Council has adopted a tree management policy that seeks to manage existing trees appropriately and reduce the amount of trees being removed from public open space for non-essential reasons.  The council manages a large quantity of public trees within the streetscape; which presents its own challenges, so the management and retention of these trees is also an important facet in the Council’s Climate Change Action Plan.  Tree and hedgerow protection and retention of mature trees is arguably as important as new tree planting, as it serves to retain a mature tree canopy that already supports an established ecosystem and existing ecological corridors. 

All proposed schemes are examined for opportunities for new tree planting. For example - 500 trees were planted as part of the Ogham Tree trail in Dodder Valley, 367 trees were planted as part of Phase 1 of the upgrading of N81, and there are plans in Sean Walsh Park to implement some mini-woodlands this planting season.

South Dublin County Council is a founding member of the Dublin Mountains Partnership (DMP); and the DMP in tandem with Coillte Nature recently announced the Dublin Mountains Conversion Programme as outlined below. SDCC are delighted to partner with Coillte in this proposal through the Dublin Mountains Partnership.

Dublin Mountains Conversion Programme and the Native Woodland Conservation Scheme grant:

"Coillte owns and manages around half of the forests in the Dublin Mountains, with the remainder managed by private forest owners. When this land was first planted with trees between the early 1940s and late 1960s, Dublin was a much smaller city and nobody thought much about outdoor recreation in forests. Today, these forests are among the most important recreational sites for a growing urban population seeking fresh air and green space: Coillte’s most popular forest, Ticknock, sees over 550 visits a day. Until now, Coillte have managed these areas for commercial purposes first, and for recreational purposes second. But because of their popularity and proximity to the city, it’s time to put people’s needs much higher up the agenda. Through the Dublin Mountains Makeover, nine Coillte forests will transition away from the clearfell and replanting cycle towards a different model. Multi-generational forests managed under ‘Continuous Cover Forestry’ (CCF) principles will maintain their green canopy on a permanent basis, and in areas where this isn’t possible, non-native Sitka spruce and lodgepole pine trees will be removed and replanted with native species such as Scots pine, birch, rowan, oak, holly and willow to provide habitat for nature and bring autumn colours to the hills."

Work started on the Dublin Mountains Makeover in June 2020 and continues over the coming years, Collite are moving towards a new ‘continuous cover’ approach to forestry that maintains a permanent forest canopy. In areas where this is not possible, they are clearfelling small areas of conifer plantations and replanting them with native woodland within the same year. This will enhance and create habitats for wildlife, enrich the forests’ recreational appeal for people and improve the wider landscape’s aesthetic value. The aim of the Dublin Mountains Makeover is to improve biodiversity, climate resilience and recreation. Over the next 20 years the plan is to increase broadleaf from 5% to 25% (equivalent of about 180ha). 

The replanting with native woodland in the Dublin Mountains will be partly funded through the Forest Service Native Woodland Conservation Scheme grant on many of the sites but this grant does not cover the full cost of replanting the sites with native woodland particularly the high cost of  deer protection (fencing required).

The Dublin Mountains represent a signficant resource in terms of Green Infrastructure, and the conversion of existing coniferous woodland to broadleaf woodland is considered by the partners to be a significant contribution to the development of native woodland in Ireland. South Dublin County Council will continue to engage with Coillte and our other partners in the development of this programme and examine if further co-ordinated and complementary actions  can complement and enhance the proposed actions regarding the transition to broadleaf, mainly native woodlands.