Forest carbon farming in Ireland : a scoping review of policy-practice misalignment in a low-forest agricultural system

Abstract

Ireland has ambitious targets for expanding tree cover and using forestry to support climate mitigation, biodiversity recovery and climate adaptation, yet forest cover remains approximately 11% and recent afforestation rates remain below national targets. This paper argues that the central challenge is not primarily a lack of technical pathways, but a policy–practice misalignment between carbon and biodiversity objectives, forestry scheme design, farmer decision-making and trusted delivery mechanisms. We conducted a scoping review following PRISMA-ScR guidance, screening 238 records, assessing 87 full texts and synthesizing 30 core studies, of which 21 were published during 2020–2025. The review shows that Ireland has substantial theoretical afforestation potential, including estimates of several hundred thousand hectares of potentially suitable land, but uptake is constrained by recurring barriers: land-use flexibility, farming identity, intergenerational lock-in, administrative complexity, uncertainty over long-term returns, biodiversity concerns and limited trust in policy stability. We synthesize these findings through a policy–practice misalignment framework that links four domains: ecological pathway suitability, scheme and governance design, farmer adoption constraints and trusted delivery mechanisms. This framework differs from a simple adoption-barrier list by showing how ecological, institutional and behavioural constraints reinforce each other. Participatory Action Research and Living Lab approaches are therefore positioned not as empirically established solutions in Ireland, but as implementation mechanisms that could test locally acceptable forestry models, monitoring burdens and incentive designs. The Irish case provides transferable lessons for other low-forest agricultural systems where carbon farming depends on aligning environmental ambition with landholder trust, practical feasibility and adaptive governance.