The impact of landscape design planning on the timber production and financial outputs of a forest plantation in Ireland

Abstract

Significant expansion has occurred in Ireland's forest estate since the 1950s. However, the design of the monocultural plantations established in the 1950s and 60s is now considered insensitive to local landscapes and re-design intervention and transformation is needed to improve integration into the environment. This case study was carried out in Laracus forest, Co. Donegal. The rotation of all stands in this 581-ha property has reached the final production phase, with coupes scheduled for clearfelling from 2003 to 2015. The implications of forest re-design for both the volume production in the current rotation and the financial return of the current and subsequent rotations were examined. Results indicated a volume loss due to design planning for the current rotation of 5.6% compared to the volume produced under the standard regime. In financial terms, this represents a loss of 4.6%. For the subsequent rotation, a significant financial gain of 22% in net present value was achieved as a result of redesigning the plantation. The overall financial out-turn for the property, when both the current and subsequent rotations were considered, was a 3.4% lower net present value for the design plan than for the standard regime. This result represents a lower impact of design planning in Laracus than most other forest restructuring studies have reported.