Natural real asset manager SLM Partners has closed SLM Silva Fund II with a commitment of €150 million ($167 million) from Dutch pension investor APG on behalf of the pension fund ABP, AgFunderNews reports. The commitment is the fund's first and final close. The fund will invest in continuous cover forestry (CCF) projects, first in Ireland and then in other European countries.
It follows SLM Silva Fund I, which invests in Ireland. As of June 2026 that fund had acquired 2,000 hectares and moved 67% of its forest area to CCF management, said managing director Paul McMahon. "That was where we first developed the strategy and then we began to see opportunity to replicate that strategy," he said.
Unlike clear-fell forestry, the industry standard in which a whole area is harvested at once, continuous cover forestry fells only parts of a forest at a time, so the canopy is always kept. That brings well-documented benefits for biodiversity, soil health and carbon capture. For owners, McMahon said, it can also mean steadier cash flows, because the forest is thinned regularly, and lower costs, because natural regeneration replaces replanting.
An estimated 22-30% of European forests are currently managed under CCF. The EU Forest Strategy for 2030 highlights it as a way to make forests more climate resilient, and Ireland has grants to help plant more diverse forests. "We're seeing these pressures in forestry from storms, from fires, from pest disease as climate shift," McMahon said, adding that investment managers are also showing more interest.
He stressed that CCF is not a "magic bullet" and does not suit every forest: a stand may be too mature or prone to windthrow, and poplar is grown in rotation by design. Resistance is gradually changing, he said, as the approach moves from being seen as something for environmentalists or non-commercial forests to a commercial management strategy.
Photo: Amalo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Source: AgFunderNews
Comments
(0)