Ireland’s largest private forestry management group is set to pilot a monitoring framework for measuring biodiversity gains on a replanting project, as it considers issuing biodiversity credits in the future.

Green Belt will coordinate the project on a 22-hectare forest in Edgeworthstown, County Longford, in collaboration with an undisclosed private company, which owns the land.

The company committed to converting it from a commercially productive forest under the previous owner to a native, multi-species diverse plantation with a focus on improving biodiversity and the natural capital value of the site.

Under the project, biodiversity gains will be measured through leveraging light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies to monitor water flow, as well as trail cameras erected across the site to observe mammal activity.

“Water quality is a very significant issue in Ireland,” Green Belt said in a statement.

“This venture will be used as a template for measures that can be employed to monitor the quality and issues within significant water courses, particularly adjacent to harvest sites, and to provide mitigation strategies.”

As well, bird surveys will be conducted for species of conservation concern in Ireland during June, July, and August using acoustic monitoring.

Biodiversity uplift will be displayed in real-time on a website, Green Belt said, in a bid to show the increases in mammal activity and the resulting bird presence from the introduction of ponds.

The term of the project is designed for more than 120 years, and the outcomes will be validated using the methodology developed by the UK-headquartered non-profit Wallacea Trust.

The methodology was updated last November with the inclusion of a peer review process to verify claims.

REPORTING PURPOSES

While the owner of the land will initially use the project for nature and climate disclosure purposes under the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) frameworks, the area could generate biodiversity credits in the future.

“We see this as a starting point for the industry and individual small landholders to provide their lands for improvements and gains to be measured and reported upon,” Maurice Ryan, director of Green Belt, told Carbon Pulse.

“But it must be seen in reality first before the funds flow into these projects.”

Ryan said that should the project start generating biodiversity credits, one unit would represent biodiversity gains over a 10-square-metre area.

“If we were to trade credits … we would estimate the price to be €5 per credit,” he added.

The initiative is being carried out as a beyond-value chain commitment by the company to decarbonise its operations.

Yet, there won’t be any carbon credit issuance since there’s no framework to sell them in Ireland, Ryan said.

In January, Ireland published its fourth National Biodiversity Action Plan, setting out plans for every person in the country to be aware of the importance of biodiversity.

A month later, the country launched a scheme to pay woodland owners in conservation and restoration projects, under which some could receive €6,000 per hectare.

An emerging Irish peatland standard aims to address biodiversity credits before the end of 2025.

By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com

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