Ulster Wildlife Launches 100-Year Rainforest Restoration With 30,000 Trees on 41 Acres
Updated
Updated · BBC.com · May 25
Ulster Wildlife Launches 100-Year Rainforest Restoration With 30,000 Trees on 41 Acres
1 articles · Updated · BBC.com · May 25
Nearly 30,000 native trees have been planted at Lenamore Wood near Omagh, starting a 100-year effort to restore temperate rainforest on a 41-acre site.
Ulster Wildlife says the project targets one of the UK and Ireland's rarest and most threatened habitats; ancient woodland covers just 0.04% of Northern Ireland's land area.
Aviva is backing the wider UK restoration push with about £38 million, while the Omagh site will be tracked through fixed-point photography, bird and butterfly surveys, moth trapping and bat sensors.
The first shoots are expected to emerge from protective tubes in about a year, but full woodland recovery will take at least a century before future generations see the forest mature.
Temperate rainforests support biodiversity, carbon storage and flood management, and Ulster Wildlife says it is seeking more land as it prepares to open the site to the public.
Is spending £38 million to plant a new forest more effective than protecting the last fragments of ancient woodland?
Will Northern Ireland's new 'rainforest' become a prescribed sanctuary for mental health and healing?
After planting 30,000 trees, how will this forest be defended against invasive species and pollution for the next century?
Launched in 2026, the Lenamore Wood Restoration Project is a long-term effort to restore a largely lost ecosystem and transform Lenamore Wood into a thriving natural habitat. Led by Rosemary Mulholland, who feels privileged to start this vital work even though she may never see its completion, the project is designed with a generational scope. From the beginning, it has focused on building a deep ecological understanding through comprehensive monitoring, including fixed-point photography and wildlife surveys. This approach ensures that the restoration is carefully tracked and guided, laying the foundation for lasting ecological recovery.