Woodlands

Temperate Rainforests

The woodlands of the British Isles are magical and mystical, but as one of the least-forested countries in Europe, they are also under threat.

Did you know that rainforests are not just confined to hot climates? They also exist in temperate climates, and Britain was once a rainforest nation.

In Britain, temperate rainforests can be found on the west coast, in western Scotland, the Lake District, western Wales and the southwest of England. It occurs where a wet and mild climate, clean air, and coastal and upland ancient woodland meet.

These temperate rainforests – are of global importance, having the greatest concentration of oceanic lichens and mosses in Europe.

These woodlands have a sense of mystery; where the air can be thick with mist, enigmatic fungi work their magic, and the exquisite colours and textures of mosses, ferns, and lichens cloak the trees.

We need to protect and encourage this habitat for the long-term future. But can we generate new temperate rainforests?

For 20 years, I have watched our young forest grow and slowly become drenched in velvet mosses, showing clear signs of becoming a mystical temperate rainforest. Cloaked in moss, dripping with lichen, where plants grow on other plants, fungi grow on moss, and moss grows on all the trunks and branches to provide a lush, green feel all year round, supporting an abundance of life.

Some branches and trunks are so heavily caked in moss that they resemble miniature lost worlds.

A place that is ‘wet and mild enough for plants to grow on other plants’ with constant ambient moisture makes this our woodland –
wrapped in low clouds, drenched in the rain, wreathed in fog – surely a temperate rainforest?

In the technical sense – yes!

Our small patch of temperate rainforest possesses a markedly eerie, otherworldly quality that feels so magical. Remote, tiny, young, fragile and unmapped. Whilst rain brings life, it also brings decay, and in turn, this brings more life, fungal life – it’s a wild and evocative landscape. Look closely up into the canopy, where plants grow on other plants. Continuously dripping with moisture, and the best time to see this precious habitat. Rarer than the tropical rainforest.

It feels like a domain for pixies and fairy folk. But, where the gap between our world and an otherworld is narrow & passable, this is our lost world…

A landscape that Britain is losing. Britain’s lost rainforests used to cover up to one-fifth of our landmass, but now these temperate rainforests have been felled, grazed and planted and currently cover only 0.5% of the country.

This loss is not just a tragedy for Britain but a destruction of a habitat of global importance, rarer than the tropical variety.

Our forest is relatively young and slowly developing into an upland temperate rainforest, left to its own devices, fenced off from sheep.
We must protect and re-generate where possible Britain’s dying rainforests, a precious habitat of global importance. To benefit our climate and preserve the unique biodiversity these forests support.

They are reminders of a lost heritage, an ecosystem woven into mythology. We need to build and restore these lost forests – our wild places.