The ForES project team recently published an article in the BES Forest Ecology Group, a British Ecological Society Special Interest Group on The Natural Capital of Irish Forests.

Calling all people working in the Irish forest industry - the ForES project will host two workshop demonstrations of our online decision-support tool and you are invited.

Ecosystems have different capacities to supply ecosystem services. A plantation forest might be ideal for timber not for wildlife habitat

Climate change is having profound effects on Earth’s systems. Its effects can be seen on every continent, with some areas being affected mo

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 standar

Well-managed forests on the right kinds of soil sequester and store carbon, pulling damaging carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

An update from ForES project postdoc Francesco Martini on the team's recent visit with Pro Silva Ireland to a forest site managed with CCF

There are many arguments about which type of tree is 'better' but both broadleaves and conifers fulfil different roles within ecosystems

In advance of the holiday festivities, ForES Project PhD candidate Kathleen Conroy of Trinity College Dublin came up with this cute robot character Dot the Botany Bot to walk us through an animated explanation of how accounting for ecosystem services works in a forestry context... as Dot searches for the forest of her dreams. Does it exist? Click below to watch... What are ecosystem services? Ecosystem services are anything that the natural world provides that brings about a

This summer ForES PhD student Kathleen Conroy and Postdoc Francesco Martini of Trinity College Dublin represented our project at a number of conferences and summer schools. Here's an update on what they have been working on and what's to come... June 2023 Kathleen Conroy attended the British Ecological Society Trees for Climate Change, Biodiversity and People symposium. She presented a poster entitled “Creating Ecosystem Extent Accounts to Understand Land Use Change in Irish

Our project aims to develop a tool to value the ecosystem services that forests provide to enable better decisions for the most sustainable use of land and forests. This may result in something known as ecosystem conversion. Here, Kathleen Conroy, Trinity College Dublin, looks at what conversion means in relation to forestry, with three significant associated terms - deforestation, reforestation and afforestation. Ecosystem Conversion Ecosystem conversion is an ecosystem ch

Our Trinity College Dublin researchers will be presenting their ForES work on ecosystem extent accounts for forest sites at a number of events this summer. Read more... Our ForES PhD Candidate Kathleen Conroy will be speaking at the Trees for Climate Change, Biodiversity and People event in Canterbury, England, hosted by The Woodland Trust , University of Kent and the British Ecological Society , which takes place from June 28-29. The presentation topic will be 'Creating Ext

Forest fires can be naturally beneficial to ecosystems - unless they get out of hand. ForES PhD student Kathleen Conroy looks at the issues

The ES in ForES project stands for ecosystem services but which type of forest do we consider to provide 'better” ecosystem services, natural forests or plantations? Our post-doc Francesco Martini looks at the question... The 2020s is the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration and efforts to restore degraded ecosystems, including forests, are growing. Replanting forests in previously forested areas (i.e., reforestation) or planting completely new forests where there were none bef

The concept of agroforestry can seem intimidating. Breaking it down: agro- (Greek, means “field”) and forestry (Latin, means “the outside woods”). Having the literal definition is just the starting point, now what does agroforestry actually mean? Here, Trinity College Dublin PhD candidate Kathleen Conroy explains a little bit more on the concept. Agroforestry is a type of multi-use land management which combines the forestry and agriculture industries. Under agroforestry, lan

Kathleen Conroy, our ForES PhD at Trinity College Dublin, writes a potted history of Irish forests, when and why deforestation on a major scale began - & when the comeback started... It can be hard to imagine that counties Meath, Louth and Limerick were covered in forests at one time. In fact, most of Ireland was forested about 9,000 years ago. Looking at pollen records, plants became established in Ireland approximately 13,000 years ago with trees arriving 9,600 years ago (M

Our research project, which will look to co-develop tools for sustainable forestry management decision-making, is led by natural scientists at Trinity College Dublin, in collaboration with University College Dublin and Coillte, supported by the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine. It is well understood that forestry provides timber but it also supports biodiversity and supplies other public benefits, including carbon capture to tackle climate change. However, unless