Britain’s Lost Rainforests: How the UK Once Had Lush Forests – and the Plan to Restore Them

When I was a kid, I thought that rainforests were only located in more exotic parts of the world (I grew up in the UK, which can be called many things, but exotic isn’t one of them!).  I associated rainforests with places like Africa, India and even Australia – with huge trees and ferns, and animals like tigers and elephants living in them. It wasn’t till much later that I learned that the UK itself had rainforests – but temperate ones – and that, unfortunately, where they once spread across the land, especially the east coast of the UK (even on the Isle of Man), what was left were just fragments of the grandeur that was, before we came along and pretty much ruined it!

Of course, this degradation panned out over a couple of thousand years, speeding up once the Industrial Revolution too hold of the UK (which may not even have been called that at the time) and it is going to take a hundred years to renew them.  Where once extended rainforests flourished, land was cleared for growing populations and for the food which was needed to sustain them.  This was done methodically but without any particular care and forethought – it was done in response to demand and without any real conservation laws in place, it was open season.  Just look at the wildlands of Scotland – their bareness is so embedded within the Scottish and British psyches that we can easily believe that was how they have always been.  But the Roman name for Scotland was Caledonia, derived from Celtic origins and thought to mean “land of the hard woods”.

But how do we recover our British rainforests?  Over a long period of time is the answer.  Over at least a century.   We can’t just plant trees and walk away – it’s much more complex than this.  So, step forward the Wildlife Trusts, with their ambitious plan to join up many of the remnants of the rainforest on the east coast of the UK (Wales gets a great mention!).  It isn’t going to be ready by next summer, unfortunately, but as smaller programmes that have already started have shown, this kind of venture starts generating jobs and visitors much more quickly than you might imagine - because recovery itself can surprise us all with its speed if it is properly planned and managed.  This beautifully animated video explains the rainforests, how they came to shrink and what is proposed to do about restoring them (or perhaps renewing them) to at least some of their former glory. It’s ambitious – and it’s going to take a century.  Watch the video below.

It doesn't say which animation house created this, but hats off to them - gorgeous work!