Publication
Tree felling and management
From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Published on
Last updated on
To protect forests and ensure sustainable forest management, you must have a licence to cut down the trees in your forest.
See more information on how to get access to Tree Felling Licences.
This booklet provides guidance on how to manage roadside trees and to assess risk associated with trees and describes common defects including dieback, unstable leans, splits and cracks, decay, and cavities supported by photographs of these issues.
The calculator allows forest owners and managers to estimate tree volume and carbon using basic tree information for the main conifer and broadleaf tree species. With the supporting user manual, the calculator offers a simplistic interface for forest owners and managers to input information from their own forests.
The Felling Decision Tool was developed to provide owners with information on estimated timber revenues and forest characteristics (wood volumes per hectare, tree top height, and mean tree size in cubic metres) at different stages in the forest cycle. This tool may be used to assist in deciding when to clearfell, by providing financial information on the implication of felling earlier or later than when the financial returns are normally at their highest. This may enable landowners to get a better return from their investment in forestry, as well as providing the revenue needed to cover reforestation costs to continue the forest cycle.
Launched in 2021, the All Ireland Roundwood Production Forecast 2021-2040 presented three forecasts in the report.
These include:
1. forecast of gross volume
2. forecast of net realisable volume which includes reductions for harvest loss, accessibility and crops unlikely to be harvested
3. forecast of wood fibre availability. A portal was developed to accompany the forecast that generates user defined spatial forecasts for private and Coillte forests. The facilitates the dissemination of comprehensive volume forecast information on the national forest estate in an accessible, reproducible and transparent way.
Access the Roundwood Production Forecast System and please read disclaimer.
Watch video on how to use the Roundwood Production Forecast System:
This interactive forest planning model software has been developed to allow growers to input variables related to various scenarios or operations and project the anticipated outcomes of such activities.
The Windthrow Model was developed to predict the probability of windthrow occurring in a forest. Users of the model are required to enter information describing the site and forest and the tool allows forest owners and managers to anticipate the likelihood of windthrow to inform management options.
CLIMADAPT is a web-based decision support system (DSS) based on Ecological Site Classification developed specifically for Irish forestry to provide forest managers and policy makers, using soil and climatic information to assess species suitability and yield for individual sites under current and future climate change scenarios. It also includes a spatial analysis module for regional assessment of key environmental factors influencing species suitability and productivity.
The Wood Price Quarterly shows the private average roundwood prices received by private growers by average tree size category. The prices are averages derived from data received from a range of growers and potentially include all conifer species and harvest types.