Country

Ireland: 2 ecoregions. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Ireland belongs to two temperate broadleaf ecoregions. The Celtic broadleaf forests cover most of the island - the natural home of oak, ash, and hazel woodland under a famously mild, damp Atlantic climate - while the North Atlantic moist mixed forests take the wetter, windier western and northern fringes. Frost is light, summers are cool, and rain is dependable, which makes Ireland one of the easiest temperate places to establish trees and one of the hardest to ripen sun-loving crops. The broadleaf woodland itself rates Nature Imperiled; very little old forest survives, so garden and hedgerow plantings of native oaks, hollies, and rowans carry real weight. The oceanic mildness also welcomes an unusually wide range of southern-hemisphere evergreens.