New roots

According to the adage: ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.’ This has never been more apt than it is today, as there are many environmental reasons to encourage farmers to consider forestry: carbon dioxide absorption, improved water quality, better drainage, and increased biodiversity.
The 100 Million Trees Project seeks to make the tree-planting journey an easy and enjoyable process for farmers, without the need for a land-use change, licence applications and associated red tape. The initiative was developed in 2022 by brothers Richard and David Mulcahy, and it aims to plant 100 million native Irish trees across Ireland over the next 10 years, in a bid to reverse the immense environmental damage caused by the reduction of forests worldwide and the loss of biodiversity.
Richard, who is chair of the consumer division of the Uniphar Group in his day job, bought his first small forest of 11 hectares in 2000 and has since planted a further 46 hectares of mixed native and pine trees on his farm on the Wexford/Wicklow border.
David, a consultant cardiologist and founder of the CRY clinical service, has been planting trees for 25 years and founded Bugs Bees and (Native) Trees in 2020 to encourage tree planting.

Miyawaki method

The 100 Million Trees Project employs the ‘Miyawaki method’ of densely planting between 500 and 2,500 native Irish trees across small areas of land. By planting excess trees together, they grow 10 times faster, 30 times denser, create an area 30 times more biodiverse, and a rapid carbon sink. This inexpensive approach requires significantly smaller planting areas and can be carried out on unused or fallow land.
“We planted 20,000 trees last year, creating 18 mini forests with 15 types of native trees around the country,” explains David. This year, the goal is to plant 250,000 trees and farmers are among the groups the project is hoping to on-board. “If we could get the farming community, GAA community and church community to take part, we could make a very big difference. You can plant 2,500 trees on a quarter of an acre and, working on the basis of 138,000 farms in Ireland, if every one of those gave up a corner of the big field, you would have a very significant planting of native trees.”
Planting trees on a quarter of an acre or less means no licence or permission is needed, and the project supplies the trees free of charge, along with labour and horticultural expertise. “If they prepare the land, we will plant their forest within weeks, no matter what part of the country,” David says.

In a heartbeat

Donal O’Keeffe, a cereal farmer in Delvin,
Co. Westmeath, took very little persuasion.
“I heard about it from my heart consultant!” he says. “David found out I was a tillage farmer and asked if there was any place we could plant some trees. I had a corner of a field that was wet more often than not, and even if we did get to sow it, we might not get to harvest it the following autumn. When David suggested this, it suited me down to the ground. Putting trees into it would help to dry out the ground around it, even outside of the tree area, and leave everything farmable. I’m not losing land that’s producing anything significant and it’s doing something that I think is very good.”
The effort required by cereal farmers to prepare the land is minimal, he says.
“I ploughed that corner of the field when I was doing it for winter wheat. There’s no solid surface, so it was really easy to plant the trees. I got a small number of my family to give us a hand on the day, and David brought down four professional foresters. We got a lovely day in November and it was quite enjoyable.”
Donal found a second site and he planted over 2,000 trees in each. “There’s Rowan, Scots pine, hazel. They are all deciduous and native,” he says. The mini forest, he hopes, will help to support nearby fauna. He explains: “Just 100 metres away from it, we have a badger family under a row of beech trees, they’ve always been there. We have two beehives on the farm now, and foxes, and I’m told there are otters in the river, and the beech trees have buzzards in them every year, which are very enjoyable to listen to. I would imagine these new trees will be a huge attraction to wildlife.
“My sister is into bird watching. She lives in Galway and is in the Burren regularly. I expect she will be the most regular visitor to the forest when it gets up and running. It should be something that a younger generation could do school projects on to see what biodiversity it has produced.”

Sowing the seeds

Donal has been spreading the word among his fellow cereal farmers and there is already interest. “For cereal farmers, if there aren’t any cattle or sheep on the farm, you don’t have to fence it, so taking out little corners that grow very little anyway could be an advantage. I’ve a guy, I cut his grain, and he is very interested in doing this. He was lined up to do it, but the weather was just so wet.”
The project fits the needs of farmers aiming to improve the environment and protect biodiversity on their land, without changing land use. “I put in some forest five or six years ago on poor land. It’s deciduous trees and it looks great, but that land is in forestry forever and some farmers are reluctant to do that. This project is ideal because it’s only small parts. Most tillage farmers are very well disposed to the environment so small plots like this fit into the niche between larger forestry and will not impede a commercial tillage operation.”
The speed and ease of the initiative is another selling factor. “One of the things that I’m hearing time and again is the amount of paperwork, the number of forms that have to be filled in, the number of schemes involved.
"I understand the detail required in a lot of these schemes, but it’s become very, very cumbersome. The big advantage of the 100 Million Trees Project is there is no bureaucracy,” says Donal.

Try harder

David believes the farming community can be a strong partner in restoring Ireland’s biodiversity. “Our major worry is we’re losing all our birds and we’re losing our beauty. There’s been about 30 per cent reduction in bird species, up to 60 per cent in Germany. Native bees are getting a hard time. We’re not working closely enough with nature. We need to try harder.
“The farmers I’ve dealt with, once they’re getting the trees free and we help them plant them, they are delighted with the effort. These mini forests need very little management in the long term and will be a very nice little area of biodiversity going forward.”