IRELAND will plant 440 million trees over the next twenty years in a bid to tackle the growing issue of climate change.
The plan is to plant 22 million trees every year in order to capture as much carbon emissions as possible, according to the government's Climate Action Plan.
Speaking to the Irish Times, a spokeswoman for the Department of Communications Climate Action and Environment said: "The climate action plan commits to delivering an expansion of forestry planting and soil management to ensure that carbon abatement from land-use is delivered over the period 2021 to 2030 and in the years beyond.
"The plan sets out key actions to be taken by the Department of Agriculture. The target for new forestation is approximately 22 million trees per year. Over the next 20 years, the target is to plant 440 million," she added.
Detailed in the plan was the aim to plant nearly 20,000 acres of forestry every year, with around 2,500 conifers or 3,300 broad-leaf trees to be planted in each every given hectare.
The plan also states that around 70% of the trees planted are to be conifers, while the other 30% will be broad-leaf trees.
Expectedly, there has been some opposition to the plans from the farming community, parts of which are likely to have to surrender some of their land in order for the government to reach their goal.
Earlier this year Scotland declared that they had made a “critical contribution to the global climate emergency” by surpassing their tree planting goal for the year, after 11,200 hectares of planting was carried out over the last 12 months - surpassing their target of 10,000. Reports say the planting led to more than 22 million new trees.
