Hometree’s restoration effort, says Ó Foghlú, will probably be primarily based on the recommendation of ecologists and foresters. But the tentative imaginative and prescient is to return pine forests to the higher slopes of the valley, willow and alder to the floodplain, and oak and birch to the valley sides. The group can even work to regenerate blanket bogs and defend species-rich grasslands.

But reforestation received’t be simple. Parts of those hills are so bereft of native bushes that woods can’t simply regenerate. Centuries of heavy rainfall have additionally leached vitamins from the soil. James Rainey, an ecologist at Trees for Life, a nonprofit engaged on rewilding Scottish forests, says that whereas tree progress in such environments will be sluggish at first, woods will regenerate if you happen to cut back the grazing stress, be certain that vegetation doesn’t catch hearth too usually, and guarantee there’s a native supply of tree seeds. “If you have those criteria, you’re going to get recovery,” he says.

It’s about greater than bushes although. Rainey says specialist wildflowers and lichens might should be reintroduced to piece the ecosystem again collectively. He additionally stresses the necessity to defend peatlands and different delicate habitats in these hills. But he believes restoring temperate rainforests is important. Globally, he says, they’ll solely thrive in slim climatic bands just like the west coast of North America, the south of Chile, and the west of Ireland and Scotland. “We’ve got a massive challenge ahead to restore this ecosystem,” he says.

Yet Hometree’s wider imaginative and prescient may show a tricky promote in a land the place native woodlands have been gone for thus lengthy. “Three to 5,000 years in most parts of Ireland,” says Ó Foghlú. “They’re not really part of our culture. We’ve become pastoralists, and that’s a reality we have to deal with.”

There can also be little monetary incentive for farmers to revive forests. Many farmers, says Ó Foghlú, see giving land over to reforestation as completely taking it out of financial productiveness. Farmers don’t see how their kids will be capable to earn a residing from native woodlands sooner or later both, says Ó Foghlú. “And as of right now, you’re left with nothing to say to them.”

Many of Ireland’s hill farmers are additionally skeptical of conservation measures usually. In the Nineties, giant tracts of Ireland’s western mountains had been designated as conservation zones. Farmers say this was finished with little enter from landowners, that it restricted farming exercise and devalued land, and that the funds provided in return have decreased over time. “The designations and the way they’ve been applied in Ireland has been fairly toxic,” says Vincent Roddy, president of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association. “It’s probably done more to undermine the objectives as regards biodiversity than anything else. … And this is why farmers are very suspicious of anything new.”

But Hometree hopes to make forest restoration worthwhile for farmers. The group is trying to elevate at the very least $13 million from authorities, company, and philanthropic sources to fund its 1,600-hectare ambitions. It says it’s going to put $2.7 million of this right into a fund to reward farmers for safeguarding and restoring woodlands, run neighborhood occasions and college applications, and pay for customer amenities.

Ó Foghlú imagines a future the place farming and forests thrive aspect by aspect. He envisages wholesome corridors of woodland offering shelter and forage to grazing animals on hill farms, safeguarding water high quality, and connecting bigger wooded areas. “I do think you can sell the concept of these woodlands on the idea that there are benefits to the farming systems, too,” he says.

If Hometree can display this alongside the Bealnabrack River and at its different undertaking websites, the dual targets of thriving forests and thriving farms in these mountains won’t appear so poles aside.