‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds

Roz Birch, pictured with volunteers collecting acorns from sessile oak trees near Oban, uses the outings to deliver impromptu biology lessons. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian View image in fullscreen Roz Birch, pictured with volunteers collecting acorns from sessile oak trees near Oban, uses the outings to deliver impromptu biology lessons. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian ‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds Teams painstakingly combed endangered Atlantic habitat over several years, helping to grow 8m native trees A small band of volunteers has helped to grow nearly 8m native trees in Scotland , crucial to efforts to restore lost parts of the Atlantic rainforest, after collecting 11m seeds by hand. About 100 volunteers, including retired teachers and doctors, office workers and young families, have spent tens of thousands of hours venturing into often remote woods in the western Highlands and islands to search out seed-bearing trees. They have used detailed maps compiled by NatureScot and Scottish Forestry that identify pockets of ancient woodland, often in exposed, challenging locations, scrambling up hillsides to find the right specimens. They search for a select range of trees, known to have colonised Scotland after the last ice age: hazel, sessile oak, dwarf birch, willow, juniper, birch, wild cherry, wych elm, yew and elder. View image in fullscreen Tree nursery staff are seen holding Aspen seedlings at the Dundreggan Rewilding Centre, near Loch Ness, in December 2024. The trees are stressed to produce seeds in a controlled nursery environment, nicknamed by the workers the ‘torture chamber’. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian The ecologists involved said these trees have inherited the genetic resilience to survive in specific microclimates and soil types along Scotland’s Atlantic coast – an advantage non-native trees would lack, particularly as the climate changes. The latest surveys suggest only 30,000 ha of original Atlantic rainforest, a rare temperate habitat adapted to the UK’s moist coastal environment, survives. Now the focus of multimillion-pound restoration projects, those pockets have been meticulously mapped within distinct seed zones devised by forestry experts. The seeds have been collected, graded and checked by the rewilding organisation Trees for Life at its tree nursery at Dundreggan near Inverness, with the finished saplings sent back out to the correct zones. View image in fullscreen Planted trees at Dundreggan. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian The Woodland Trust has taken saplings for reforesting projects – including Glenn Shieldaig and Assynt in Wester Ross, Beò Airceig, a 30,000ha restoration around Loch Arkaig in Lochaber – and sold to scores of crofters planting small woods on former grazing land. Sheena Macauley, a biology graduate who lives near Oban, is one of those volunteers. A former IT manager at Scottish Power’s Cruachan hydro s