Priority Habitats - Woodland

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This data represents NIEA surveys and may not represent the entire extent of habitat or species across Northern Ireland. Research projects focused on identifying woodlands across Northern Ireland with more targeted surveys undertaken in AONBs, County Fermanagh and Lagan Valley Regional Park where the incidence of woodlands is high. The most extensive and diverse priority woodlands have been identified through these surveys by NIEA Conservation Science Habitat Survey Team (HST), and have been further surveyed. Only those woodlands of particular importance within Annex 1 of the Habitats Directive have been identified by the HST. This only represents a partial dataset and does not include the complete priority woodland resource in Northern Ireland. Where point data only is available for older woodland surveys, further mapping is required to provide a fuller representation of all priority woodlands across Northern Ireland. The Ancient Woodland Inventory has identified small blocks of woodland which may be considered as long-established or ancient woodland, but the priority woodland communities frequently extend beyond those areas mapped as ancient woodland and these must also be included as priority woodland when considering planning applications. A comprehensive survey of semi-natural woodlands in County Fermanagh provides a fairly comprehensive list of priority woodlands in this county.

Habitat Survey Team, Conservation Science: 1985 - 2014 Fermanagh Woodland survey – excluding ‘Conifer Plantation’ - Liverpool University – 1991 Ancient Woodland Inventory – excluding ‘planted conifer’ and ‘semi-natural conifer’ – Woodland Trust - 2008

HST - Northern Ireland Environment Agency Woodland Trust

The dataset is not complete and does not adequately cover the whole of Northern Ireland’s important priority woodland resource.Although a fairly comprehensive survey of Northern Ireland’s Woodlands has been undertaken since the mid 1980’s, some of this woodland data has still to be updated digitally. Additional woodland sites will be added to the hazard mapping database as point metadata is digitised to reflect the area of these priority habitats on the ground using the most up to date aerial photography. A similar methodology has been used for other habitats where possible, such as grasslands and fens.