When Andree Dubbeldam stands under a row of identically tall, spindly Sitka spruce trees, of course he sees lots of conifers, which decades ago were brought from the Pacific Northwest. That’s some 4,000 miles away from the Isle of Man, a crown dependency of the UK located between England and Ireland. The isle’s moist and mild weather makes it suitable for temperate rainforests (also known as Celtic rainforests).
There are the trees Dubbeldam sees now, and the ones he sees in his mind’s eye. For Dubbeldam also keeps in mind what the 174-acre Glion Darragh Nature Reserve could look like a few decades on. This would no longer be an unsuccessful timber plantation in an island nation too small to process wood at scale, but a temperate rainforest of varied heights, textures, sounds, and smells, from fragrant honeysuckle to the stinkhorn fungus. He imagines all the insects and birds that the forest would draw. He can also envision some cows once the new vegetation is more established.
Some of this may seem like a pipe dream. Replanting in this gentle valley hasn’t yet started in earnest. Dubbeldam, a woodlands wildlife officer for the Manx Wildlife Trust, hopes that in about 15 years the land will be stocked with cows that produce less methane when they belch, though it’s not yet clear whether such breeding can produce healthy cows. He thinks that rewilding of this site can coexist not only with some grazing, but also with a thinned-out forest of conifers and more local trees, and perhaps some thoughtful nature tourism. To purist conservationists, this may look like a kitchen-sink approach.
Yet it aligns with the pragmatic approach of the Manx Wildlife Trust, the NGO that manages the Glion Darragh Nature Reserve, as well as others dotted around the island. A nature supporter gifted this land to the trust in 2024, following the passing of her father. It was marginal land that had already been on sale for years, according to Graham Makepeace-Warne, the head of engagement at the Manx Wildlife Trust. So protecting this land hasn’t removed it from productive use, he says.
That’s the main quarrel of opponents of such conservation projects. Farmers are anxious about the loss of farmland, and the Manx National Farmers’ Union has opposed plans elsewhere to convert agricultural land to rainforest. However, the union says that it has no specific concerns about converting monoculture coniferous plantations to native trees, as at the Glion Darragh site.
Diversifying forests would help respond to tree diseases, Dubbeldam notes, while expanding forests would help the island absorb more water overall. With the more variable weather conditions created by climate change, “a fifty-year flood is now a five-year flood.” He’s speaking just after Storm Bert, which led to power outages and travel disruption on the Isle of Man, and at least five deaths in the UK, the neighboring country that is visible from the Isle of Man. Not only are storms now stormier, Dubbeldam says; droughts are also drier.
The rainforest work has been funded by insurance company Aviva as part of a £38 million donation to restore temperate rainforests across the British Isles. Makepeace-Warne says that supporting biodiversity and climate protection makes economic as well as philanthropic sense for companies dealing with risk; it’s only going to get more expensive to deal with climate change. “What we can do as a trust is to plant the right trees in the right place,” for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity.
There’s one part of the reserve that already resembles what Dubbeldam hopes the rest will eventually look like. At the edge of the conifer forest and overlooking a stream, soft, Grinch-green moss has started to return to the spruce trees. Occasionally there’s a small fern. It’s a striking difference from the dark, uniform rows of trees behind. This area looks “ancient and gnarly and Tolkien-esque,” as Dubbeldam describes it.
It certainly looks very different from the monoculture of US-sourced trees, not far away in the same reserve. This mossy area conjures up the history and mystery of the term “Celtic rainforest.” With enough will and planning, more of the Isle of Man may eventually remind visitors of this rich natural heritage.
Reporting for this article was supported by the Isle of Man’s Department for Enterprise.
