National Trust joins push for temperate rainforest revival in North Devon with new 100,000-strong tree planting project - National Trust
A large-scale project to create a wilder, woodier and wetter landscape is underway in north Devon with the National Trust planting over 100,000 trees this winter to re-establish approximately 50 hectares (123 acres) of temperate rainforest, one of the UK’s most endangered habitats, and other wooded habitats.
The planting will take place across three sites, with 50,000 trees to be planted at Arlington Court, 38,000 on Exmoor and 20,000 at Woolacombe/Hartland, with more planting to follow in the coming years.
Temperate rainforests, also known as Atlantic or Celtic rainforests, are characterised by their consistently wet climate, making them the perfect home for a unique variety of rare ferns, mosses, liverworts, lichens and other wildlife including pine martens, pied flycatchers and stoats. They are also a key player in protecting both the UK’s biodiversity and helping to tackle climate change.
Over the centuries however, the once expansive temperate rainforest, which used to run the length of the western seaboard of the UK, has deteriorated largely due to air pollution, invasive species and diseases such as ash dieback.
John Deakin, Head of Trees and Woodlands at the National Trust said: “Temperate rainforests used to be expansive wooded habitats along the western seaboard of the UK, but now all that’s left are fragments, covering only one per cent of Britain and limited to small patches in Devon, Cornwall, North and West Wales, Cumbria, the West of Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. As a result, the rare specialist plants that depend on this habitat now desperately cling to the remaining fragments for survival, with some of the woodlands we care for in north Devon containing nearly the entire global population of some of these species, such as the Devon Whitebeam. Without urgent action, these unique plants could soon be facing extinction.”
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Posted On: 29/01/2024