I was enraptured. Surely, I thought, such rich woodland belongs in the tropics, not the UK. But it is true. The British Isles harbour fragments of a globally rare habitat: temperate rainforest. The government has previously said that much of the country’s temperate rainforest is protected and that it is committed to its safekeeping. At a recent event in parliament, environment minister Rebecca Pow said that much of the remaining temperate rainforests were already protected, citing figures from Natural England. But analysis by Lost Rainforests of Britain has found that only 5,000 hectares (12,489 acres) of English rainforest is under formal protection in SSSIs. Britain’s rainforest zone – where the climate is sufficiently rainy and mild for temperate rainforest to thrive; a region covering around 20% of Britain. This was constructed using an ‘index of hygrothermy’ to show gradations of climate, with lighter blues showing an ‘oceanic’ climate and darker blues and purples denoting a ‘hyper-oceanic’ climate. More details in our metholodogy document below.

Epiphytes are not parasitic. Because it’s wet enough, they simply use trees and branches as structures on which to grow. Britain’s temperate rainforests are incredibly rich in ferns, including polypody ferns which grow along the branches of trees. There are also many species of rare lichen, moss, and lungwort, and these epiphytes, in turn, support a massive amount of biodiversity when they grow on ancient oak and other woodland trees. How extensive were temperate rainforests in Britain’s past?The project resonated with Brits during the pandemic, and he received thousands of submissions, which, if verified, were then uploaded to an ever-expanding public map that anyone can use to discover temperate rainforests near them. Shurbsole hopes that the crowdsourced information can now assist authorities and conservationists in their efforts to establish protected rainforest areas and effective woodland management strategies.

I’ve had more contributions than I can possibly deal with. It’s clearly touched a nerve, and I’m glad because for me there’s always this double take: “A rainforest? In Britain? What?” I’ve been signed up by a publisher to write a book on Britain’s lost rainforests now, too. “Knowing where the rainforests are is a crucial part of knowing how to save them,” Shrubsole says. W hat more can be done to save the rainforests? Britain’s rainforest fragments – where we believe to be Britain’s surviving fragments of temperate rainforest. This shows that rainforests today cover less than 1% of Britain.So the next time you go for a walk in the woods and spot ferns growing from branches, lichen sprouting like coral and tree trunks bubbling with moss, you may well be walking through one of this country’s forgotten rainforests. Temperate rainforests, however, once covered a much larger swathe of England, and even larger parts of Wales and Scotland. A map produced by the academic Christopher Ellis in 2016 identified the “bioclimatic zone” suitable for temperate rainforest in Britain – that is, the areas where it’s warm and damp enough for such a habitat to thrive. This zone covers about 1.5m acres of England – around 5% of the country. For comparison, the entire woodland cover of England today is just 10%, and much of that is conifer plantations. Was he ever unnerved, I asked, by being in such ancient woods alone? He did once briefly think he saw a hellhound, he tells me, on a misty afternoon when there was a “pale, milky translucence to the air above the misshapen boulders”. But generally he finds London scarier. More concerning, he explains, is the way our culture has encouraged us to fear our natural landscape. He cites the UK’s anti-rewilding voices, such as Chris Loder, the Conservative MP for West Dorset, who recently claimed that reintroduced white-tailed eagles will prey on farmers’ lambs, an idea Shrubsole considers “ridiculous”. Wistman’s Wood: even the name of this ancient oak-tree grove on Dartmoor seems to conjure spirits. As someone who grew up nearby, I remember tales of hellhounds and spectral riders winding through its twisted trees – perfect fodder for sleepovers. Yet more than the ghosts, it was the wood itself – an other-worldly tangle of low-hanging branches laden with moss and lichens – that fascinated us: it seemed a portal to the past, so mysterious that it made the very idea of a phantom hunt seem plausible.

The rainforest was once a well-used resource, providing timber, charcoal and tannin for tanning leather. But our rainforest is threatened. It has suffered long term declines through clearances, chronic overgrazing, and conversion to other uses. This has left a small and fragmented resource. Shrubsole’s book may be a re-enchantment but as a campaigner he has clear aims: he wants the British government to draw up a rainforest strategy. Rather than just protecting the final fragments, he is seeking restoration, and believes a realistic target is to double the 1% land area within a generation. This could be achieved, his mapping has shown, simply by allowing the fragments that remain to naturally regenerate on their fringes.We help our 18.7 million customers make the most out of life, plan for the future, and have the confidence that if things go wrong we’ll be there to put it right.

While Shrubsole thinks rewilding should be as much about restoring lichens and liverworts (the “stuff beavers chew on”) as it is about apex predators, he also believes our attitudes towards reintroducing bigger beasts need to change. “How patronising and elitist is it to expect a large chunk of the world’s population [to live near tigers], and not be prepared to have a few lynx and wolves living in our own landscape again?”Wistman’s Wood in Devon. ‘I definitely want to convey the extreme importance of treating these places with utmost respect,’ says Shrubsole. Photograph: Tom Williams