Scotland's rainforests in Wester Ross and wider Highlands and islands under increasing risk, warns Atlantic Woodland Alliance of leading conservation charities
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INVASIVE rhododendrons, conifer plantations and overgrazing are all threatening the Atlantic rainforests of Wester Ross, conservationists have warned.
Members of the Atlantic Woodland Alliance, which include some of Scotland’s largest nature conservation organisations made the claims at the launch of a new report highlighting the pressures the ecosystem faces and outlying possible strategies to save and expand them.
“Scotland’s rainforest is just as lush and just as important as tropical rainforest, but is even rarer,” said Adam Harrison of Woodland Trust Scotland. “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 and includes open 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.”
Local examples of the rainforest include parts of the Balmacara Estate near Kyle and the Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands National Nature Reserve.
The habitat can contain over 200 different species of bryophytes, such as the deceptive featherwort and the greater fork moss, and over 150 different species of lichen.
The new report reveals that there is as little as 30,325 hectares of rainforest left in Scotland. The remnant oak, birch, ash, native pine and hazel woodlands are small, fragmented and isolated from each other. They are over mature and often show little or no regeneration.
Gordon Gray Stephens, representing the Community Woodlands Association, said: “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.”
