Speaker:

Dr Áine ní Dhubháin
Senior Lecturer,
School of Agriculture and Food Science,
University College Dublin

and

Lucie Vítková,
PhD student
University College, Dublin

Biography:

Dr Áine ní Dhubháin is a Senior Lecturer in Forestry in the School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin. She commenced her research career in University College Dublin in 1991 and has focused on three main themes: the socio-economic impacts of forestry; farm afforestation and continuous cover forestry. Since 2002 she has been leading nationally funded research projects into aspects of continuous cover forestry including natural regeneration; light in forest canopies, transformation to CCF in mature Sitka even-aged stands of Sitka spruce using underplanting. She is currently leading the LISS (Low Impact Silvicultural System) project, a collaborative research project between the forest industry in Ireland and University College Dublin.

Synopsis of Presentation:

This presentation gives an overview of the current status of CCF in Ireland. It outlines the results of a survey of forest owners/managers conducted in 2012 which revealed the extent to which, and on what site types, CCF was being practiced in Irish forests. It also presents the results of site visits to a random sample of these sites.

For the past decade or so, research into initiating the transformation process to CCF has been conducted. Originally this research focussed on transforming older stands to CCF through underplanting, more recently experiments exploring the transformation process using different approaches to thinning have been conducted. An overview of the key results from this research will be presented focussing on the results of the thinning experiment.

A number of other initiatives in relation to CCF in Ireland will be described. This will include a description of the expansion of the AFI network and a training exercise on crown thinning that was conducted with forest owners, forest owners and a non forestry group.

Conference Resources:

• Download/View Áine ní Dhubháin and Lucie Vítková’s Presentation  [PDF, 1.9 MB]
• Watch Áine ní Dhubháin and Lucie Vítková’s Presentation  [Youtube]

Websites and References:

1. Ní Dhubháin, Á. 2010. An evaluation of continuous cover forestry in Ireland. COFORD, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Dublin. Link to PDF  [PDF, 2.0 MB]
2. Vítková, L., í Dhubháin, Á., O’Tuama, P. and Purser, P. (2013). The practice of Continuous Cover Forestry in Ireland. Irish Forestry Vol 70 No 1-2. pp 141-156.
3. Ní Dhubháin, Á., O’Leary, D., Keane, M., Farrelly, N. and O’Hare, D. 2001. An Assessment and Demonstration of Continuous Cover Forests in Ireland. Final Report to COFORD. 121 pp.