Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, founder of the Thousand Year Trust, on bringing back Britain’s rainforests
BRITAIN HAD RAINFORESTS? WHO KNEW?
Three thousand years ago, a fifth of our landmass was temperate rainforest. These ancient Sessile oak woodlands grew along our Atlantic coast, from Stornoway in the Hebrides to the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall.
ARE THERE ANY LEFT?
We’ve lost 99 per cent of them. We cut them down for farming and fuel. Uplands such as Bodmin Moor, Dartmoor and the Lake District used to be a mosaic of open grasslands, peatlands, wood pasture and rainforest.
WHERE CAN WE FIND THE ONE PER CENT?
One of the remaining fragments is at Cabilla, the farm on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall that my father [the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison] bought in 1960. I spent my childhood playing among these old oaks covered in lichens, mosses and ferns. It was like Tolkien’s Fangorn Forest, full of folklore and magic.
IS THAT WHY YOU WANT TO SAVE THEM?
The inspiration for setting up my charity, the Thousand Year Trust, was my experience of finding solace in these deeply special landscapes. I loved them as a child – and they’ve helped me recently, too.
HOW DID YOU REDISCOVER THEIR POWER?
My wife, Lizzie, and I moved back to Cabilla from London five years ago. Lizzie had been through several miscarriages; I had PTSD related to three tours of Afghanistan during my time in the military. Being in the forest fed our souls and helped us heal.
AND YOU’VE SINCE FOUND THEY HAVE A WIDER BENEFIT…
I’ve learned they are the best habitats in the UK for fighting climate change. They’re important because they’re incredibly dense habitats – one mature oak can house 600 species. First, they’re covered in lichens, mosses, ferns, liverworts, pennyworts and other plants. Among them are smaller native trees, such as rowan, hazel, willow and hawthorn. Then, beneath the soil is mycelium, a vast network of fungal matter that connects all the trees together. This layering of life means a temperate rainforest can absorb carbon at about three times the rate of most UK woodlands.
WOW! HOW MUCH RAINFOREST CAN WE RECOVER?
Our mission is to triple Britain’s temperate rainforest to a million acres within 30 years. We’re starting at home. Lizzie and I are tripling the rainforest on our land from 100 to 300 acres. We removed livestock and let the soil rest. Then we introduced Cornish Black pigs to flip and aerate the soil, letting invertebrates and fungi back in. Now, we are planting the trees. We’re using this as a test site and are working with six universities to discover which methods of regeneration are best.
IF WE LOSE LAND TO TREES, WHERE CAN WE PRODUCE OUR FOOD?
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