What is temperate rainforest?
Temperate rainforest at Glenborrodale. Credit Colin Wilkinson (rspb-images.com)
Scotland’s temperate rainforest is a globally rare habitat, far rarer than tropical rainforest, and of immense biodiversity value.
It’s made up of ancient semi-natural woodlands and is unique because of the sheer quantity, quality and diversity of mosses, liverworts and lichens, for which we have an international responsibility to protect. They require clean air as well as a long-standing continuity of woodland habitat. Frequent and plentiful rainfall is also necessary for rainforest to form, as are relatively mild winters and cool summers.
These conditions are referred to as ‘hyper-oceanic’ and they occur over less than 1% of the planet. Western Scotland is included within this rare hyper-oceanic climate but here there is just an estimated 30,000 ha of quality temperate rainforest left.
These fragments have only survived by being in relatively inaccessible places – such as on steep-sided ravines – or because the woodland was managed in ways that also allowed the internationally important mosses, liverworts and lichens to persist. The presence of certain indicator species distinguishes temperate rainforest from other types of woodland in the rainforest zone.
Many lichens, like this tree lungwort are indicator species for Scotland’s rainforest - Credit Lorne Gill/NatureScot
Scotland’s rainforest faces many threats including:
invasive non-native plants
inappropriate grazing levels
fragmentation
development schemes
coppicing
felling for domestic firewood
planting with inappropriate tree species
climate change
pollution
pests and diseases.
More information can be found here: Managing Temperate Rainforest.
