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Key Findings

Forest area in Ireland covered 808,848 hectares, approximately 11.6 % of the land area in 2022

CSO statistical publication, , 11am
UN SDGs Goal 15 banner image

The CSO, through Ireland's Institute for SDGs (IIS), supports reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals.

Key Findings

  • Ireland’s Special Protection Area network now encompasses more than 597,000 hectares of marine and terrestrial habitats in 2022.

  • Artificial surfaces, mainly due to development, accounted for just 2.4% of Ireland’s land surface area in 2018. 

  • Agriculture land-use accounted for 67.6% of the national land area, with wetlands making up a further 14.9%.

  • The National Parks and Wildlife Service assess and prioritise species for conservation purposes, which are available on Ireland’s Red Lists.

  • Ireland’s total Official Development Assistance for biodiversity, was $47.36 million in 2020 (constant 2020 United States dollars).

Statistician's Comment

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (07 December 2022) published Ireland’s United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Goal 15 Life on Land 2022. This new report has data on thirteen indicators for Ireland, divided over two chapters: Ecosystem Conservation and Biodiversity. Data are presented in categories relevant to the indicators and geographical location, where possible. The SDGs and their associated indicators are, by design, wide-ranging in their coverage. As a result, the Irish data is provided by a number of sources including government departments, official organisations and international organisations such as the United Nations (UN). This publication for Goal 15 was developed in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).

Commenting on the publication, Kevin McCormack, Senior Statistician, said:

Ecosystem Conservation

"Ireland’s forest area covered 808,848 hectares, approximately 11.6% of the land area in 2022. Leitrim is the county with the highest percentage of forest cover (20.1%), while Cork has the largest forest area (92,471 ha). The forest estate is comprised of 69.4% conifers and 30.6% broadleaves.

A programme to identify and designate Special Protection Area (SPA) sites has been in place since 1985 and Ireland’s SPA network now encompasses more than 597,000 hectares of marine and terrestrial habitats.

Despite rapid development in the last two decades, Ireland's landscape is predominantly rural and agricultural. Artificial surfaces, comprising mainly of urban development, commercial/industrial areas, transport infrastructure, and sports and leisure facilities, accounted for just 2.4% of the land surface in 2018. Agriculture land-use accounted for 67.6% of the national land area, with wetlands making up a further 14.9%.

Biodiversity

The NPWS assess and prioritise species for conservation purposes, which are available on Ireland’s Red Lists. NPWS and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency are working together with national experts and with the National Biological Data Centres North and South to produce regional red lists for the island of Ireland. The production of red lists is an action under our National Biodiversity Plans.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Environmental Policy Committee (EPOC), through its unique database of Policy Instruments for the Environment (PINE), presents statistics on the biodiversity-relevant economic instruments and the finance they mobilise. The data are relevant to monitoring progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Target 3 (on incentives), Target 20 (on resource mobilisation) as well as SDG Target 15.a. on biodiversity finance. Ireland’s total Official Development Assistance (ODA) for biodiversity, was $47.36 million in 2020 (constant 2020 United States dollars)."

Introduction

This new publication ‘Ireland's UN SDGs – Goal 15 Life on Land 2022’, is the fifteenth in a series from the CSO. These publications monitor and report on how Ireland is progressing towards meeting its targets under the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). 

The CSO, Government Departments and Organisations collaborate to bring together data required in these reports for Ireland’s SDGs. This collaboration is formalised under the SDG Data Governance Board, which meets on a quarterly basis. The publication for Goal 15 was developed in collaboration with DAFM and the NPWS.

This fifteenth publication includes data for Ireland for each of the SDG indicators selected by the UN to measure 'Goal 15 Life on Land'. Data is available at various levels of detail which include geography, gender, age group and other categories, where applicable.

This report on Goal 15 has thirteen indicators which are organised into two user friendly chapters:

  • Ecosystem Conservation
  • Biodiversity

The titles of these chapters are based around common themes in the twelve targets which are measured in Goal 15.

All reports published to date in this SDG series are on the CSO's UN Sustainable Development Goals hub.

The 17 UN SDGs are a set of global development targets adopted by the UN member countries in September 2015 to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. The UN SDGs are driving the global development agenda towards 2030 (Agenda 2030). They address global challenges including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The 17 goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, the aim is to achieve them all by 2030. They recognise that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and help economic growth, while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The CSO, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri-Ireland) established a project team in April 2017 to engage with a combined UN Statistics Division (UNSD)/Esri research exercise with a goal to develop and deploy a new approach for monitoring the UN SDG Indicators using geographic information systems. The result of this exercise is a new website (Ireland's SDGs Data Hub), hosted on OSi's Geohive platform, which is Ireland’s Central Portal for all SDGs and contains indicators data on the 17 UN SDGs for Ireland. All the indicators in this publication will be loaded onto the Geohive. This work has been formalised through the creation of Ireland’s Institute for SDGs (IIS) - an initiative between the CSO, OSi and Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). The membership of the IIS is expected to expand with ongoing monitoring and reporting of Ireland's progress towards meeting UN SDGs.