Eoghan Daltun: Ireland should be a rainforest nation — so why isn't it?

Letting our last pieces of rainforest dwindle and die away is as destructive to our heritage as throwing unique artifacts like the Ardagh Chalice into a giant crusher

We could bring our rainforest cover levels up  by just letting existing pockets of rainforest expand naturally by reducing grazing pressures and allowing trees to self-seed into surrounding areas says Eoghan Daltun

Here in Ireland we’re all given to complaining about the amount of rain we get. But there’s a spin-off, still largely unknown, to our wet climate: before our ancestors cleared it, much, and very probably most, of this island was rainforest.

Hearing the word ‘rainforest’ conjures images of dense, steamy jungles in the Amazon, Congo, or South East Asia, and it’s true: most of the world’s rainforests are in the tropics. But there’s another type: temperate rainforest, and that’s exactly what once covered a lot of Ireland. The thing that defines any sort of rainforest, anywhere on the planet, is the abundant presence of what are called epiphytes. These are plants that grow on other plants such as trees, but are not rooted in the ground, hence excluding ivy or honeysuckle, for example. And in a tropical rainforest you’ll likely see plenty of bromeliads, orchids, and other growths, living on the trunks and branches of the trees.