Commercial Forests

– Much More Than WD4

In keeping with the principles of sustainable forest management, Veon Ecology has been working with our private forestry clients in the area of Biodiversity Net Gain. The first step in this process commonly being the formulation of Natural Capital Assessment Reports (NCARs), which in turn form the basis of Veon’s be-spoke Natural Capital Plans (NCPs) for Forestry.

Veon’s NCPs also aim, insofar as is possible, to reduce the risk to the forests from biotic and abiotic factors that could damage or reduce yield and the ecology of the forest.

Since 2021 , Veon’s CIEEM-trained Ecologists have conducted baseline surveys at more than twenty separate commercial forestry plantation sites, The resulting ecological data recorded has proven that, even at just a macro level, the wealth of biodiversity present across well-managed commercial forestry plantations exceeds that of the commonly-assumed category of ‘WD4’, as prescribed by the late Dr Julie Fossitt in her ‘Guide to Habitats in Ireland’, where ‘species diversity is low and single species stands are common’.