this mighnt belon here

irishultra

but how does one of the least populated countries in europe have only 10% forest cover, the lowest in eu?

cnocbui

http://www.irishtimes.com/timeseye/trees/

As Cambridge's Dr Oliver Rackham puts it, "Irish woodland history is a series of disasters." From the Neolithic period onwards, farming, grazing and the growth of the bogs were what changed the landscape. There was, indeed, immense and unmanaged exploitation of the remaining woods in Tudor times, but already these covered little more than two per cent of the island. The population explosion of the 1800s stripped much of the western countryside of anything burnable outside the demesnes, and many of the woods and plantations inside the walls were felled and sold for timber in the break-up of the Big House ascendancy.
By the time state-funded forestry began, in 1904, tree cover was down to about 1 per cent of the island.

irishultra

of course ireland actually used to be pretty densley populated. weird.

Gurgle

irishultra wrote: »

but how does one of the least populated countries in europe have only 10% forest cover, the lowest in eu?

Cromwell. Pacification. Fire.

Macha

A large part was the payment of English soldiers with land. Given the uncertainty of English rule and how long it would last, many soldiers decided the best way to make a fast buck was to cut down the trees on their land and sell them as timber to the rapidly expanding ship-building industry.

In 1900 I think our coverage was at 1%.

Progress through the 20th century was slow due to the power of agriculture. It was actually illegal to plant trees on good agricultural land, leading to bogs being drained by state bodies and trees being planted on land that was generally good for nothing else.

Capt'n Midnight

Because of the amount of rain we get we have on e of the best climates for tree growing.

coppicing willow for use in power stations could be worth looking at

in other news during the 20th century tree cover went up 10 fold