7.4.1 Sustainable Forest Management (SFM)

7.4.1 Sustainable Forest Management (SFM)

Sustainable forest management is the sustainable development and management of forests and forest lands in a way that maintains their biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their potential to fulfil now and in the future, relevant ecological, economic and social functions, at local national and global levels and that does not cause damage to other ecosystems.  The Forest Service is implementing SFM with a view to ensuring that all timber produced in Ireland is derived from sustainably managed forests.  This is supported by the Irish National Forest Standard[1], the Code of Best Forest Practice[2] and a suite of environmental guidelines (relating to water quality, landscape, archaeology, biodiversity and harvesting) as well as the work of the Forestry Inspectorate and the ongoing review of Irish forest legislation.

To ensure that SFM is implemented, the Forest Service publishes a suite of Guidelines as follows:

• Forestry and Water Quality Guidelines
• Forestry and the Landscape Guidelines
• Forestry and Archaeology Guidelines
• Forest Biodiversity Guidelines 
• Forest Harvesting and Environmental Guidelines
• Forest Protection Guidelines 
• Forests and Water – Achieving Objectives under Ireland’s River Basin Management Plan 2018-2021 (2018)
• Forestry and Freshwater Pearl Mussel Requirements