Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest
Saving Scotland’s Rainforest
Scotland’s rainforest is one of our most precious habitats. It is as important as tropical rainforest, but even rarer. Yet few people in Scotland know it exists and fewer still know how globally significant it is.
Scotland’s rainforest is made up of the native woodlands found on our west coast in the ‘hyper-oceanic’ zone. Here, high levels of rainfall and relatively mild, year-round temperatures provide just the right conditions for some of the world’s rarest bryophytes and lichens.
But Scotland’s rainforest is in trouble. As little as 30,000 hectares remain – a mere 2% of Scotland’s woodland cover and only a fraction of the area that has climatic conditions suitable for rainforest.
If we don’t start taking serious and urgent action to support and protect our rainforest, we face the risk of losing this internationally important habitat completely. And the longer we wait, the harder it will become.
Focus projects
The Alliance aims to establish and fund a series of landscape-scale projects across the rainforest zone, which urgently need funding and support.
Visit Scotland’s rainforest
There’s so much to see in Scotland’s rainforest, so why not visit? Read our guide to the wildlife you might spot, or use our map to find some of the best, accessible areas to explore.
For land managers
This section of the website is for land owners and land managers who would like to know more about looking after an area of Scotland’s rainforest. Here, we’ve gathered together a variety of resources to help you identify temperate rainforest, understand what threatens it, and learn how to manage it.
Read our blog
Want to keep up to date with what’s happening in Scotland’s rainforest? We publish regular blogs from people who are passionate about these woodlands. Find out more about conservation work, filming, events, research and more.
Lochaline, credit Gordon Rothero
Banner image credits: Barnluasgan, Beinn Eighe ravine, Plagiochila spinulosa (Prickly Featherwort), credit Stan Phillips; Chequered skipper butterfly, Tim Melling / Butterfly Conservation Scotland; lichens Skye, Gordon Willoughby/WTML; Red squirrel and fungi, Laura Corbe / WTML and oxalis, Phil Formby/WTML. Also Glen Shieldaig, ROAVR / WTML; Donald Kennedy, Mat Larkin; Lochaline, Gordon Rothero.