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

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