Image description: Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, founder of the Thousand Year Trust, sitting on a tree trunk with his dog, wearing a blue shirt, jeans and brown hat. Photograph: Bex Aston/The Observer

Scaling up and restoring the connections between Britain’s rainforests is key to their long-term survival in the face of climate change.

Planting native trees and enabling natural regeneration of the woodlands by reducing grazing pressure is vital to ensuring temperate rainforests and the abundant wildlife they support can survive as climate change accelerates.

Rainforest cover has shrunk from covering an estimated fifth of the UK to a mere 1 percent due to industrial clearing. They are now found only in fragments that face multiple threats, including isolation, invasive species and rising temperatures which put their unique micro-climate at risk.

Restoring these ancient woodlands can also play a role in tackling climate change, storing carbon and reducing run-off and flooding caused by increasingly heavy rainstorms.

Efforts underway include a £38.9 million, 100-year programme by the Wildlife Trusts, funded by insurance giant Aviva, to restore 1,755 hectares (4,337 acres) of rainforest along the Atlantic coastline, from Cornwall to Scotland, including Wales, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. The Wildlife Trusts is also taking a rainforest garden to Chelsea Flower Show, which they have announced will be rehomed at the Bristol Zoo Project after the world famous horticultural event, in an effort to raise awareness of the rare habitat.

The Thousand Year Trust, based in Cornwall, is also planning to build Europe’s first station dedicated to Atlantic Temperate Rainforest research. Their mission is to provide year-round access to our restoration blueprint site with laboratory space and temperature-controlled storage to support data collection.