Coillte on target to have windblown forests recovered by end 2026 and replanted by 2027

Ireland’s forests sustained unprecedented damage from the most powerful storm on record, when Storm Éowyn swept across the country on 24th January. The storm toppled over 26,000 hectares of Ireland’s forests, with 14,500 hectares of that on the Coillte estate, impacting productive forests, biodiversity sites and recreation areas.

The scale of the challenge was immense – from the initial emergency clean-up and restoring access to mapping the damaged area, mobilising timber harvesting at scale, supplying disrupted markets and replanting.

Coillte has made significant progress with a remarkable recovery effort across the forest estate. With a window of 18–24 months to salvage windblown materials for rapid mobilisation, Coillte is on target to have all windblown forests recovered by end 2026 and replanted by 2027.

Approx. 85% of the windblow area now has a felling licence enabled by Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, with Coillte’s Irish contractors expanding their capacity.

Timber is being processed through Ireland’s world-class sawmills for construction products to build low carbon timber-frame houses, and for pallets, fencing, panel-boards and energy-wood.

While the timber is being safely extracted and processed, replanting is already underway to start the forest cycle again.