Restoring the Ancient Celtic Rainforest In Cornwall

What the project does.

This exciting project is committed to restoring the ancient Celtic rainforest habitat across the South West of England. Working in harmony with landowners and farmers to ensure the land is brought back into ecological balance without intruding on food producing land. By reforesting, planting native trees and encouraging natural regeneration, the project is committed to establishing permanent, high-quality, native woodland habitats and ensuring the project sites grow into thriving woodlands.

Temperate Rainforests are some of the world’s rarest woodland habitats. In the UK they survive in small pockets along the West Coast. Shaped by the Atlantic, these woodlands are dense and lush, dominated by twisted Sessile Oaks dripping in epiphytes, populated by fungi and constitute rich habitats for native wildlife. In the South West of England, this woodland habitat is an extremely important resource for our native wildlife. The woodland boosts biodiversity and helps to sequester carbon and provides a place for communities to reconnect with nature.

Approx 350 tCO2 e per hectare of native broadleaf woodland

The project provides biodiversity benefits by regenerating degraded ecosystems together with sustainable co-benefits for the local communities and includes:

What it supports.

• Local improvement in woodland habitat resilience
• Endangered tree species reintroduction such as Rowans and Whitebeams
• Increasing woodland habitat cover for a national net gain
• National biodiversity gain
• Improved national resilience to climate change
• Thousands of potential acres for habitat development
• Community engagement at a local level
• Green social prescribing
• Volunteer opportunities