Coillte has introduced the launch of its 2025 Forestry Scholarship Programme.
Constructing on the success of its inaugural programme, which noticed scholarships being awarded to a few college students, the scholarship gives substantial monetary and profession help for college students pursuing a full-time, third degree forestry programme at College School Dublin (UCD) or South East Technological College (SETU).
Providing as much as €20,000 per recipient throughout their diploma, alongside paid summer season placements and profession alternatives with Coillte, the scholarship was created to deal with the rising want for expert professionals to help Eire’s environmental and financial sustainability.
Inaugural students Áine O’Dwyer (Donegal), Mia Sibbald (Kildare) and Alex Energy (Waterford), now of their first semester at SETU, are already benefiting from the programme.
The launch of the 2025 Forestry Scholarship comes amid rising curiosity in forestry careers, as revealed by a current RED C survey commissioned by Coillte.
This survey discovered that 60% of 18–34-year-olds view a profession within the forest and wooden sector as engaging, with over 1 / 4 of all these surveyed describing it as very engaging.
Moreover, 57% of girls surveyed expressed curiosity in a profession in forestry, highlighting the sector’s broadening attraction throughout numerous demographics.
This rising curiosity aligns with the business’s pivotal position in addressing Eire’s local weather and housing challenges, whereas assembly the growing demand for sustainable timber.
Public sentiment additionally strongly helps forestry’s position in addressing these challenges:
- Practically 70% of RED C survey respondents favour elevated timber body housing, reflecting an increase in help since 2022.
- 80% imagine Eire ought to be self-sufficient in timber manufacturing, with over half strongly agreeing.
The forestry sector is recognised as a key driver of Eire’s local weather motion goals, requiring greater than 1,700 expert professionals by 2030 to satisfy the ambitions of Eire’s Forest Technique.
Launching the 2025 Coillte Forestry Scholarship programme, Mark Carlin, Managing Director of Coillte Forest, stated: “Forestry is important to Eire’s environmental and financial future, providing numerous careers in all kinds of areas.
“With CAO purposes now open, we encourage college students to contemplate forestry as a significant profession that contributes to a greener, extra self-sufficient Eire.”
Carlin added: “Forestry isn’t just about planting and harvesting bushes – it’s a dynamic, multifaceted sector.
“There’s a variety of careers obtainable, together with planners who use subtle data expertise to develop strategic forest administration plans, ecologists working to guard and improve biodiversity throughout our property, supply-chain managers working to co-ordinate the availability of sustainable wooden merchandise, and recreation managers delivering trails and actions for folks to take pleasure in.
“Sustainability is on the coronary heart of forestry at this time and technological innovation continues to rework the forest sector.”
Talking in regards to the scholarship’s influence, inaugural scholar, Alex Energy, stated: “Receiving the Coillte scholarship has opened doorways for me.
“It’s not simply the monetary help—it’s being a part of a sector that performs such an essential position in tackling local weather change and supporting rural communities.
“My first few weeks at SETU have been thrilling and provoking, as I find out about sustainable forest administration and the way forestry may help construct a greener future.”
Purposes for the 2025 Coillte Forestry Scholarship Programme are actually open and extra data might be discovered on-line at www.coillte.ie.
The deadline for purposes is Friday 2nd Could 2025.
Photograph: Áine O’Dwyer (Donegal), Mia Sibbald (Kildare), and Alex Energy (Waterford), with Managing Director, Coillte Forest, Mark Carlin. Pic: Naoise Culhane Images
