Woodland preservation non-profit group secures its first Cork site

A not-for-profit organisation that works to establish and conserve permanent native Irish woodland, has secured its first site in County Cork.

Thanks to a local donor, Hometree  has purchased an eight-acre site near Donoughmore in mid-Cork, which will be used as an educational facility to host school and college groups. 

It will also be used as a showcase location for farmers to see how they can integrate native trees into intensive farming systems.

Cork native Ray Ó Foghlu, Hometree’s farm programme coordinator, said, some of the best land in Ireland is in Cork county "the heart of dairy country".

“It isn’t feasible for farmers to block out whole areas with trees, but there are a variety of ways of integrating native trees that actually work for the farm system and we will be using our new location in Donoughmore to demonstrate the advantages," said Mr Ó Foghlu.

“It can simply be planting lines or groups of trees in corners of fields or scattering individual trees throughout the pasture. 

"Native trees have mutual benefits for the environment, for water quality and for biodiversity. There are also benefits for cattle who can shelter under the trees, they can also browse the foliage which gives them minerals they can’t get elsewhere at different times of the year.”

Hometree has ambitious plans to restore 4,000 acres of wild woodland along Ireland’s west coast. Historically, up to 80% of Ireland was covered in wild forests of birch, pine and oak, but today only an estimated 1% of that remains.

The proposed Wild Atlantic Rainforest Project will stretch from Cork to Donegal over eight sites.

The nature restoration charity has a full-time seed collector, arborist Jeremy Turkington.

He visits remote valleys, sheltered hollows and ravines along Ireland’s west coast to collect rare and ancient seed specimens. 

In recent months he has picked guelder-rose berries in the Gearagh in north-west Cork.