New paper: A decision methodology for site-level ecosystem accounting

The ForES team, in collaboration with the Nature + Energy project and the IDEEA group, published a discussion paper on the application of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) at site-level, led by Dr. Courtney Gorman. Here, co-author Francesco Martini, Trinity College Dublin postdoc, outlines some key findings...

The SEEA EA (System of Environmental-Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting) is the internationally recognised standard to report extent and condition of ecosystems, and the flow of ecosystems services. It provides a consistent framework to monitor the state of our natural capital and its connections to society and the economy.

So far, the SEEA EA has been mostly applied at national or regional scale. Now the ForES project and Nature + Energy are exploring its application at small spatial scales, where typically environmental decisions are taken and management actions implemented. Nature+Energy is developing new ways of accounting for the value of nature on wind farms, while ForES is working at Coillte forestry sites in Ireland.

In this paper, the authors describe the steps involved in developing ecosystem accounts at site-level for both projects and discuss the different decisions and approaches between them (see Figure 1, above).

Their main conclusions are:

•  Site-level ecosystem accounting is highly context-dependent.

•  Close collaboration with stakeholders is key to develop accounts that can support their objectives.

• The availability of high-quality data is a limitation that needs to be overcome in the future.

As ecosystem accounting continues to develop and grow in uptake globally, this article provides a timely perspective and recommendations to all practitioners and stakeholders interested in developing accounts at local level.

Read the full article 'A decision methodology for site-level ecosystem accounting' Courtney E. Gorman, Francesco Martini, Kathleen Conroy, Emma King, Reiss Mcleod, Carl Obst, Jane C. Stout, Ian Donohue, Yvonne M. Buckley: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.121814

The ForES project is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s Competitive Research Funding Programme.

Responsible forestry can pull us back from a 'carbon cliff' - Yvonne Buckley, The Irish Times

The ForES project was mentioned in an Irish Times column by team member Prof Yvonne Buckley, co-director of the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water, about the importance of well-managed forests to provide critical woodland ecosystem services including carbon sequestration and storage. Read more...

We have had a bumpy relationship with trees. Our landscapes were largely treeless at the beginning of the 20th century, with just 1 per cent of Ireland’s land covered by forest.

The native forests that used to cloak more than 80 per cent of the land were gradually removed, from the Stone Age onwards, for timber and agricultural land. Now just tiny pockets of ancient forests remain. Forests have increased from 1 per cent to over 11 per cent over the past 120 years, with most of the increase due to plantations of non-native conifer species. One single conifer species from the west coast of North America, Sitka Spruce, occupies 45 per cent of Ireland’s forest area.

Our current forest landscapes are like mosaics with a single colour predominating. While Sitka Spruce is a very productive timber tree that also sequesters and stores carbon, it can be negative for native biodiversity if planted in monocultures and clear-cut without appropriate protection of watercourses from sediments eroded from the newly uncovered land.

Poorly sited and badly managed forests can be damaging to biodiversity. Forests make many different contributions to our economy, health and wellbeing, including wood, water filtration, flood mitigation, habitats for plants and animals, climate regulation and psychological benefits.

These benefits can be provided by different kinds of forests in different areas, the “mosaic” approach, or from a single forest, the “multifunctional” approach. For example, forests close to urban areas are likely to be more heavily visited by people, providing many recreational benefits, whereas forests in the uplands provide water holding capacity that can improve water quality and reduce flooding downstream.

Well-managed forests on the right kinds of soil sequester and store carbon, pulling damaging carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If trees are harvested and the wood is used in long-lived products such as building materials and furniture that carbon can be stored for decades to centuries. Other trees can then be replanted or regenerate naturally on the same land sequestering more carbon, and so on.

Given the tempo of forest planting in Ireland, we are now approaching a “carbon cliff” where from 2025 to 2030 our forests are projected to be a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rather than a sink. There are a range of reasons for this reversal, more forests are reaching maturity and being harvested than are being planted, many forests planted in the 1980s were planted on peat soils which, when drained, emit GHGs and older trees grow more slowly than younger trees.

There are many solutions to our forest conundrums. Ireland’s Forest Strategy promotes multifunctional forests and more diverse forest mosaics. More broadleaf trees will be planted and open non-forest ecosystems will be maintained within the forest footprint. Continuous cover forestry, or close-to-nature forest management, maintains a forest canopy while small numbers of trees are harvested regularly rather than the entire forest being clear-felled.

This type of forest management protects the soil, maintains carbon within the ecosystem and allows for the best timber to be extracted and replaced through planting or natural regeneration. A more complex forest structure arises, with trees of many sizes and several different species can be included. Structural diversity is good for nature. We need to plant at least 8,000 hectares of forest per year to achieve 18 per cent of our land area covered by forest by 2050. Our new forests will be around for decades, and they must deliver for climate, nature, wood, people, and economic and rural development. This will require investment in the public and private forestry sectors to encourage and speed up the planting of diverse multifunctional and mosaic forests.

Confidence in the forestry sector is important given that it is a long-term investment and government support for the many ecosystem services, not just timber, that are produced from forests will be needed.

In the Fores research project, we are developing tools to map, measure and model the ecosystem services provided by different kinds of forests under different management regimes. Many of these ecosystem services are invisible but critical - as we expand our forests, we need to be able to demonstrate their many values.

• Yvonne Buckley is professor of Zoology at Trinity College Dublin and co-director of the Co-Centre for Climate + Biodiversity + Water

This article first appeared in The Irish Times on 27/06/2024.

Our team's on-site day of learning about Continuous Cover Forestry with Pro Silva Ireland

An update from ForES project postdoc Francesco Martini, TCD, on the team's recent visit with Pro Silva Ireland to a forest site managed with Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF).

The ForES team, together with some of the FOREST project team, visited a site managed with Continuous Cover Forestry (CCF) principles in May. The event was organised by members of Pro Silva Ireland, with the goal of connecting academics and practitioners. Too often these two worlds run on separate lines, and this event was a great opportunity to share knowledge and experiences. The group spent the day in the privately owned Cloragh Forest, near Ashford, Co Wicklow.

Members of Pro Silva Ireland kindly led the group around the site, which covers almost 200 hectares, and described how it is currently managed following CCF management practices. The principles of CCF, also called Close to Nature Forest Management, are those of a silvicultural management that aims at maintaining forest cover at all times.

Timber is harvested in small amounts and scattered throughout the site, at relatively frequent time intervals. This is different from other options commonly applied in other sites across Ireland, such as clear felling, where an area is harvested by removing all standing trees and later replanted. In the case Sitka spruce, clear felling can be repeated at about 30-40 years intervals, with a first thinning at 15 years and subsequent thinning occurring every 4 or 5 years. Thus, CCF sites allow forests to develop a higher diversity of species in the understories, as well as presenting high structural diversity and trees of different ages. This enables forest sites to deliver multiple ecosystem services (including timber provision, biodiversity, soil stability, and recreation). 

DAY IN THE WOODS...A conifer plantation in the process of being moved to a CCF management, while the previous picture shows a CCF managed area at an advanced stage at Cloragh Wood

The discussions on the day revolved around the management strategies of implementing CCF, the status of the forestry sector in Ireland, and the challenges that forestry and CCF in particular are facing. One of the largest of these is the overabundant deer populations which negatively affect natural regeneration, especially of broadleaved species (see here a great article on the topic from our co-Principal Investigator Yvonne Buckley in the Irish Times).

A huge thank you to Paddy Purser, Liam Byrne, Faith Wilson, Manus Crowley, and Tony Quinn for organising the visit and hosting the ForES team for what was an inspiring day with fruitful discussions.