Couldoran set to become Scotland’s first Rainforest Centre

A groundbreaking new Rainforest Centre will see Couldoran House at Glen Shieldaig transformed into a hub for research, education and local activities.

Kathryn Rae and Malcolm Turner

Running alongside the Woodland Trust’s ongoing work to conserve the rare and threatened habitat in Gleann Shìldeag (Glen Shieldaig), plans are afoot to turn Couldoran House into Scotland’s first Rainforest Centre.

The Centre is the brainchild of Kathryn Rae, an internationally renowned environmental lawyer and activist, who has created a new Scottish charity to purchase the house.

“As a long-time supporter of the Woodland Trust, I am very excited by its rainforest conservation plans for the estate. People are starting to wake up to the fact that action is needed if we are to preserve Scotland‘s important temperate rainforest on the west coast. This emerging movement needs a physical hub and Couldoran House fits the bill,” says Kathryn.

The Rainforest Centre at Couldoran will host events, workshops and meetings, as well as provide accommodation options for scientists, volunteers, research students and academics. “We want to host scientists working in the rainforest zone, but I am also very keen for local schoolchildren and children from cities to visit so that they can explore the rainforest and become involved in its conservation,” says Kathryn.

Another key part of the plan is for the Centre to be available to the local community for both rainforest activities and non-woodland events. For Estate manager Malcolm Turner, the new Centre will complement many of the Woodland Trust’s own plans.

“While the Centre will be owned and run by the new charity, we see many opportunities to work together, including with our potential tree nursery plans for Couldoran. Our aim has always been for the house to be used as much as possible and, while we’re still exploring exactly how it will work, we’re keen to see a steady stream of volunteers and students come to the area. As well as providing a hub for local people it will  be a place where people can develop a taste for conservation, try out some of the jobs on the estate and receive training in all aspects of land management.”

Single aspen growing at Couldoran, pic - Caz Austen

The new Rainforest Centre is also welcomed by Julie Stoneman from the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest. “When I started this job three years ago, hardly anyone even knew that we had temperate rainforests here in Scotland and now we have Scotland’s first Rainforest Centre, a truly significant development,” she says.

“Saving Scotland’s rainforests is a hugely challenging task that has to be done at landscape scale and over many years, and this new hub will be central to this work, bringing people together to work out how to solve the big issues collaboratively in new and creative ways.

“Local community involvement is essential; we need to build skills and knowledge within the community, whether that’s identifying our rare lichens and bryophytes, learning how to manage and restore rainforest or controlling some of the biggest threats, like Rhododendron ponticum and herbivore grazing,” says Julie.

For 25 years, Australian-born Kathryn has run an environmental legal and management consultancy, working for the European Union, World Bank, USAID, Asia Development Bank and many national  governments. Through EU funding, she established Regional Environmental Centres in the Caucasus and Ukraine. She also co-founded and continues to run the Wild Camel Protection Foundation (www.wildcamels.com), which was involved in established the 375,000 km2 Lop Nur Arjin Shan Wild Camel National Nature Reserve in Xinjiang, China.

Discover more about Ben Shieldaig here: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/woods/ben-shieldaig-estate/

This article first appeared in Ben Shieldaig News.