Atlantic Rainforest Restoration

Thanks to a hugely generous £38 million donation from Aviva, we are working to restore approximately 1,755 hectares of temperate rainforest across the British Isles.

The Atlantic Rainforest Restoration Programme is a £38.9 million, 100 year programme working in a long term partnership with Aviva. Native to the British Isles, temperate rainforest is an incredibly rare and biodiverse habitat, rarer even, than its tropical counterpart. Once covering a fifth of our land, it is now limited to scattered fragments totalling approximately 1% of the UK.

Temperate rainforest is often affectionately described as woodland where there is ‘green on green on green’, due to the hundreds of species of plants and lichens which cover every available surface. Tree varieties can include oak, hazel, holly, alder, rowan, birch, and willow, and their trunks serve as the ideal surface for the growth of numerous mosses, lichens, fungi, ferns, and liverworts. Areas of rainforest often feature open glades or river gorges too. Conditions for growth require a very particular oceanic climate: wet, humid, and without extremes of temperature. Many of the moisture-loving plants mentioned above also depend on the air being relatively free from pollution.

This programme will go a step further than traditional habitat restoration and will work to create entirely new rainforests on eligible sites across the bioclimatic envelope (the area along our Atlantic coastline with the specific conditions needed for rainforest to thrive). We aim to reconnect the few, fragmented sites that remain and create bigger areas of well managed rainforest- the start of a 100 year journey to rebuild the lost rainforest of the British Isles and Northern Ireland.

With the generous support of Aviva, we have the opportunity to tackle the climate and nature emergency by restoring this ecologically important habitat. Over the course of the programme, 1,175 hectares of rainforest will be restored with an estimated 222,000 tonnes of carbon sequestered by 2050, doubling to 440,000 tonnes by 2060. Take a look at this webinar outlining our partnership and work together. 

There are three sites in the programme to date: Bowden Pillars in Devon, Bryn Ifan in North Wales, and Creg y Cowin on the Isle of Man. Each project is managed by the local wildlife trust and encompasses several other initiatives which will run in tandem to the tree planting: agroforestry schemes, community engagement, volunteering opportunities, and eventually some low-impact grazing will all work to enrich the wider programme and ensure its success well into the future. We have created an interactive map to display all existing project sites here.

Protecting these habitats is of vital importance for the sake not only of carbon sequestration, but to conserve ancient plant life, and keep migrating populations of bird species such as pied flycatchers, wood warblers, redstarts, and tree pipits coming back to our woodlands year after year.

Amanda Blanc, Aviva Group Chief Executive Officer, said:

“The fact that Britain’s native rainforests will take carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere is reason enough to restore them. But on top of that, they’re incredibly rare and beautiful. This vital work we are undertaking with The Wildlife Trusts will give communities access to these sites, improve wellbeing and show how biodiversity fights and reduces the impacts of climate change.”

Rob Stoneman, director of landscape recovery at the Wildlife Trusts, said: 

“We’re delighted these first rainforest restoration projects can now get started. They’ll provide vital habitat for wildlife in a time of nature crisis, store vast amounts of carbon, and benefit local communities for generations to come. Restoring this gorgeous habitat will also allow adaptation to climate change, reduce threats from extreme heat, flood and drought, and enable local people to reap the benefits.”