Conservation groups will meet in Edinburgh today in an effort to save the country’s dwindling rainforests.
More than 74,000 acres of rainforest exists along the west coast – from Wester Ross to central Scotland – with more than 155,000 acres in need of safeguarding.
In an effort to implement a successful strategy to save and expand Scotland’s native woodlands, members of the Atlantic Woodland Alliance will gather at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh to launch an official report – compiled by the Woodland Trust – outlining the current condition of the country’s remaining habitats.
Adam Harrison of Woodland Trust Scotland said: “Scotland’s rainforest is just as lush and just as important as tropical rainforest, but is even rarer.
“It is found along the west coast and on the inner isles and is a unique habitat of ancient native oak, birch, ash, pine and hazel woodlands, includuing glades and river gorges.
“Our rainforest relies on mild, wet and clean air coming in off the Atlantic, and is garlanded with a spectacular array of lichens, fungi, mosses, liverworts and ferns. Many are nationally and globally rare and some are found nowhere else in the world.”
The meeting marks the Alliance’s drive to create a bigger, more vigorous and better connected rainforest which will allow wildlife to spread out and become more resistant to threats and environmental changes.
Around two-fifths of Scotland’s best rainforest sights are owned and managed by Atlantic Woodland Alliance members – most of which remain open to the public.
The Alliance is made up of a host of conservation groups including Forestry and Land Scotland, Future Woodlands Scotland and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority as well as the National Trust for Scotland, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, RSPB Scotland, Scottish Forestry, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Trees for Life and Woodland Trust Scotland.
Gordon Gray Stephens, representing the Community Woodlands Association, added: “It’s not too late to take action. Our vision for regenerating Scotland’s rainforest is clear: we need to make it larger, in better condition, and with improved connections between people and woods. Coming together as an Alliance can help to make this happen.”
Chris Ellis from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which is hosting the launch, said: “This habitat was once found all along Europe’s Atlantic coast, but it has dwindled over thousands of years due to clearance and air pollution from steady industrialisation.
“The west coast of Scotland has suffered less from these pressures and is now one of the last strongholds of Europe’s rainforest.”