Published54 minutes ago
The National Trust plans to create vast new areas of temperate rainforest in the south-west of England.
More than 100,000 trees will be planted in north Devon to create swathes of humid woodland that will be home to plants facing extinction.
Experts say the area’s heavy rainfall and high humidity levels provide a unique moisture-rich environment.
Other projects to recreate the lost rainforests of Britain are already ongoing.
Temperate rainforests once covered large areas of the western coast of Britain.
But the habitats have deteriorated due to air pollution, invasive species and diseases and are now one of the most endangered in the UK.
It is hoped the consistently wet climate in north Devon will allow for a unique variety of plants and animals to thrive, including rare ferns and pine martens.
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.”
Mr Deakin said the rainforests now covered “only 1% of Britain” and were “limited to small patches in Devon, Cornwall, North and West Wales, Cumbria, the West of Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland”.
He said: “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
The post Devon tree planting: Work to recreate lost rainforest appeared first on EnviroLink Network.