Western Forestry Co-op & Irish Timber Growers Association
Field day to the HSE Cloonamahon Woodland Park, Collooney, Co. Sligo incorporating a mobile sawmilling demonstration and outline of new Forestry Programme measures
Date: Friday 20th October 2023 Meeting Time: 10.15 am
Meeting Point & Directions: Due to limited facilities on site there are maximum numbers that can be accommodated for the indoor session. Consequently, people who wish to attend are asked to email info@itga.ie to register. Registration will close as soon as the maximum attendance is reached. Members registering will be notified of the meeting point with directions by email prior to the day.
Participants are advised to bring suitable clothing & footwear and a packed lunch
Itinerary
10.15am For the initial morning session we will have an indoor presentation on Woodland Creation at the recently established 42 ha Cloonamahon Woodland Park, the largest of its kind in Ireland. As we have seen on recent field days, forest recreation and amenity woodlands have significant potential for development in Ireland. This will include short presentations on the design of this amenity Woodland, to include the 4.5km of accessible trails, picnic areas, tree trail, heritage and biodiversity information signage, 5km of deer fencing and gates, benches and an outdoor woodland playground.
The presentation will cover the new Forestry Programme (FP) for both new and existing forests, including new forest types (FT), Agroforestry, Climate Resilient Reforestation options, Payments for ecosystem services, Infrastructure & Technology, Woodland improvement and Continuous Cover Forestry Scheme.
After a short coffee break there will be a Tour of the Woodland and its amenities (the native woodland types, how they were chosen, establishment operations, maintenance, future management, estimated carbon storage, outdoor trails, deer fence, picnic areas, forest playground, tree trail, habitat areas, archaeological site).
Lunch –Please bring a lunch which we can have on site. There will be tea/coffee available.
For the afternoon session we will focus on timber quality, hardwood and softwood and what we can do as forest owners to improve the quality of the timber we sell and to further improve the standing and the reputation of Irish grown timber. There will be a live sawing demonstration, kindly undertaken by the Saw Doctor, (provider of sawmill solutions for forest owners) of different quality logs to demonstrate what these logs look like when sawn and the effects our forest management has on sawn timber quality. This demonstration will also on log straightness, knots, recovery and overall quality.
Western Forestry Co-op would like to acknowledge and thank the HSE for hosting the field day, The Sawdoctor for sawmilling Demo and ITGA for jointly hosting this field day.
