The Lost Rainforests of Britain

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Was he ever unnerved, I asked, by being in such ancient woods alone? He did once briefly think he saw a hellhound, he tells me, on a misty afternoon when there was a “pale, milky translucence to the air above the misshapen boulders”. But generally he finds London scarier. More concerning, he explains, is the way our culture has encouraged us to fear our natural landscape. He cites the UK’s anti-rewilding voices, such as Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, who recently claimed that reintroduced white-tailed eagles will prey on farmers’ lambs, an idea Shrubsole considers “ridiculous”. Extraordinarily, British rainforest was not mentioned in parliament until 2021 when – at Shrubsole’s behest – his local Conservative MP raised a question about its preservation in the House of Commons. As the rain and mist obscured my view of the surrounding landscapes, it took little imagination to understand why the Woodland Trust describe Ausewell Woods as the "The Lost World". But until a concerted crowdfunding campaign raised the money to save Auswell Woods, this area of rainforest nearly became lost forever. He is also keen to point out that temperate rainforests can also help to reconnect the British public with the nature that's found on their doorstep. "Rainforests may seem exotic," said Shrubsole, "yet they're a deep part of Britain's heritage. Given how rainy our climate is, they're as British as a cup of tea." The project sees Aviva partner with The Wildlife Trusts, a federation of 46 local Wildlife Trusts that care for more than 2,300 nature reserves in the UK with local communities at their heart. It aims to re-establish temperate rainforest by planting a combination of native tree species including oak, birch, holly, rowan, alder and willow trees across an area equivalent to around 2,600 football pitches or around 5,200 acres.

One such area is Ausewell Woods, a small woodland on the eastern edge of Dartmoor National Park. A narrow country lane, lined by low stone walls covered in green moss, led to the entrance, where I stepped out of my car and into the squelchy mud of the woodland car park. Through the early morning mist, I caught glimpses of greenery in the trees, before – rather too appropriately – it began raining. Covered in an emerald sheen of evergreen flora, vast swathes of temperate rainforest once grew all along the United Kingdom's western shores. Atlantic storms, heavy rainfall and high humidity levels provide a moisture-rich environment where this unique habitat can thrive, but centuries of deforestation mean that the Woodland Trust – the UK's largest woodland conservation charity – now describes this globally rare ecosystem as "more threatened than tropical rainforest". Temperate rainforests are characterised by very wet, humid and mild climates," explained Dr Alison Smith, a scientist from conservation charity Plantlife, who is currently leading a project to protect and enhance temperate rainforests in south-west England. "They require low temperature variations throughout the year and high annual rainfall. Often, they are found in coastal and upland areas with deeply incised topography – like rivers, ravines and waterfalls – that add to the humid conditions." Mosses, liverworts, lichens – you can switch these layers on and off to show public records of different species of mosses, liverworts and lichens that are considered to be good indicators of temperate rainforest.Atlas Obscura spoke to Shrubsole about his rainforest wanderings, rare moss and curious ferns, and how a crowdsourced mapping project can help save Britain’s ancient woodlands from destruction. Environmental advocate Guy Shrubsole, pictured here in Wistman’s Wood in England, has launched a crowdsourced effort to map Britain’s endangered woodlands. What exactly is a “temperate rainforest,” and where can they be found? While Shrubsole thinks rewilding should be as much about restoring lichens and liverworts (the “stuff beavers chew on”) as it is about apex predators, he also believes our attitudes towards reintroducing bigger beasts need to change. “How patronising and elitist is it to expect a large chunk of the world’s population [to live near tigers], and not be prepared to have a few lynx and wolves living in our own landscape again?” At a recent event in parliament, environment minister Rebecca Pow said that much of the remaining temperate rainforests were already protected, citing figures from Natural England. But analysis by Lost Rainforests of Britain has found that only 5,000 hectares (12,489 acres) of English rainforest is under formal protection in SSSIs.

In the letter, seen by the Guardian, leading wildlife NGOs urged the government to ensure all of England’s rainforests are put under protection to help support its commitment to protect 30% of the country, a key draft target for an international agreement on biodiversity that will be negotiated in December at Cop15 in Montreal. Hidden Britain is a BBC Travel series that uncovers the most wonderful and curious of what Britain has to offer, by exploring quirky customs, feasting on unusual foods and unearthing mysteries from the past and present. Shrubsole came to the Right to Roam campaign through his previous book, Who Owns England?, a dissection of the inequities of land ownership. “When I was writing Who Owns England? I constantly felt angry, but for this book I hope people feel a sense of infectious enthusiasm and optimism,” he says. “I genuinely feel that part of me has come alive again through exploring these places. They are just amazing and our route to some degree of redemption as well.”Temperate rainforests, however, once covered a much larger swathe of England, and even larger parts of Wales and Scotland. A map produced by the academic Christopher Ellis in 2016 identified the “bioclimatic zone” suitable for temperate rainforest in Britain – that is, the areas where it’s warm and damp enough for such a habitat to thrive. This zone covers about 1.5m acres of England – around 5% of the country. For comparison, the entire woodland cover of England today is just 10%, and much of that is conifer plantations. But as I read with horror about this destruction, I started to realise that more fragments of our temperate rainforest have survived to the present day than I first thought. It wasn’t just Wistman’s Wood: rainforests cling on, too, along the whole valley of the Dart river (as the poet Alice Oswald reminds us, dart is Brythonic Celtic for “oak”), the Bovey and Teign rivers, and far beyond.