Conservation groups pledge to save Scotland’s precious rainforests

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 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 in need of 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, including 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 and become more resistant to threats and environmental changes.

Around two-fifths of Scotland’s best rainforest sites are owned and managed by Atlantic Woodland Alliance members, and most 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 and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.