Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest launches progress report

This progress reports charts the achievements of ASR’s collaborative action over the past five years, during a time when the interest in action for Scotland’s temperate rainforest has sky-rocketed. There’s still a long way to go, but this milestone is a good time to take stock of all that’s been achieved, as well as setting out a clear vision for where we want to be by 2045. You can download the full report on our website, or read the highlights through the link below.

> Five years of progress

From an obscure woodland to a high-profile habitat

With the launch of the ASR’s progress report, programme manager Julie Stoneman looks back at the last five years of collaborative action for Scotland’s rainforest, and reflects that while challenges remain, the outlook for this special habitat is looking far more hopeful.

> No walk in the park

Eleventh landscape-scale project joins the ASR

We’re very happy to announce our eleventh landscape-scale rainforest project. The Sunart Rainforest Project sits just to the north of the Saving Morvern’s Rainforest project, and therefore brings with it the exciting prospect of restoration work linking up over an even larger area of this landscape. It’s a partnership project led by Sunart Community Company together with the North Sunart Woodland Owners Group and three public agencies, and aims to restore and expand rainforest habitat within an 8,000ha area. ASR focus projects now cover over 300,000ha, or more than 15% of the rainforest zone.

> Find out more about Sunart

World Rainforest Day 2025

June 22 was World Rainforest Day, and events were held across the UK to celebrate and raise awareness of our temperate rainforest. At an event at Holyrood, many MSPs signed our ‘We Love Scotland’s rainforest’ sign in a cross-party show of support for our work. Meanwhile, Forestry and Land Scotland announced that teams working within Scotland’s rainforest zone had restored 1,226ha of woodland in the last year.

> Restoration reaches record level

What’s it like working in a rainforest squad?

Sarah Scott joined the Argyll Countryside Trust as a rainforest squad trainee earlier this year. She’s been getting used to working in remote places, identifying lichens, and the relentless task of removing invasive rhododendron from rainforest woodlands.

> Working on the chainsaw gang

How to restore a wood

Buying a remote area of rainforest and pledging to restore it isn’t a project for the fainthearted. But Ed Tyler and Carina Spinks were up for the challenge! Here’s how they found Ferry Wood, at the mouth of West Loch Tarbert, and set out to tackle the immense wall of Rhododendron ponticum they encountered there.

> The story of Ferry Wood

Morvern’s rainforest appears on Countryfile

The RSPB’s Saving Morvern’s Rainforest project appeared on Countryfile this February, in a long segment looking at rainforest habitats and the work that’s taking place to restore them. Technical reasons meant the episode has been missing from iPlayer, so we couldn’t share it with you before. But it’s now back up and you can enjoy it through the link below.

> Countryfile: Sound of Mull

Find out more at www.savingscotlandsrainforest.org.uk
Want to join the mailing list? Sign up here