Planted in the late 1980’s as primarily a conifer plantation, it was rough grazed bracken, gorse and marshy grassland before this. Go back to the 1860’s however, and the Wood’s land register shows most was arable farmland. Indeed, the site has the remains of two farms, an old forge, a cornmill and a lime kiln showing this now deserted valley was once a vibrant farming community.

Gifted to MWT in Spring 2024 by the Didham Estate, our task is to turn a lifeless conifer plantation into a vibrant Celtic Rainforest Nature reserve. Celtic rainforest is a rich natural habitat and if we do this alone nature will repay hundred times over for every acre we convert. However we can turn good for wildlife in amazing for wildlife by also honouring its agricultural past. Over the next 15 years MWT will re-farm 130 acres of the site by turning it into (rainforest) woodland pasture.

What will this look like?

• Imagine all the old ploughed out field boundaries being planted up as hedgerows to recreate the historic field patterns.
• Imagine well-spaced trees and shrubs within each of these fields.
• Imagine some small wildflower meadows within the forest.
• Imagine hardy cattle like highland cattle grazing the site, maybe hardy pigs too.
• Imagine orchards of wild fruit and nut trees like hazel and crab apple.
• Imagine a small community allotment.
• Imagine the wilder fringes on the upper slopes covered in bilberries and juniper berries.
• Imagine retaining just one conifer in 50. Each one reaching into the sky, where it can capture clouds and bring humidity down into the habitat to create a very ‘rainforest’ farm.

But how is this good for nature?

By taking Celtic rainforest and intimately mixing it with scrub ecology, long-grass ecology, short-grass ecology, bare-ground ecology and dung ecology; all happening in the same area, we create the perfect recipe for super bio-abundance. 

We will also slow the flow. This means blocking ditches and rewetting deep peat habitats that were damaged when trees were planted.

How do we do it?

There are around 100,000 conifer trees on site and these will need to be gradually replaced with broadleaf trees like oak, hazel, birch and willow. Over 5000 conifer trees have blown down in Storm Darragh which gives us an early option for replanting and there may be small felling areas. Traditional forestry thinning will not work either as the 35 year old trees are nearly 20m tall but with just 40cm wide trunks. Few will be able to stand up on their own in a gale as Storm Darragh has already proved.  

Our solution for much of the site will be to thin by ring-barking trees, which will leave them to die over a 2-4 year period. As they stay upright, they provide support to their retained neighbours, who will gradually thicken out. As sunlight starts to hit the ground we will be able to underplant with native trees that will form an emerging canopy below the older conifers.

It normally takes over 10 years for a dead tree to finally collapse, by which time it has significantly decayed and become valuable ecological deadwood. We will keep thinning by ring-barking for around 20 years to provide increasing light for our native rainforest canopy to develop until just a residual conifer crop remains.

Once our native trees are around 15 years old they will be able to withstand grazing by cattle so around 2042 will be the time our rainforest becomes a rainforest farm and our plan enters its mature phase. Wildlife however will start to move in the moment enough light hits the forest floor, so biodiversity of plants and insects will skyrocket from around 2027 onwards, with major increases in bird numbers just a year or two later.

What else can it do?

Glion Darragh is a special place. Everyone who visits it, falls in love with it as soon as they see the pockets of native woodland, the waterfalls, the streams and the wild-remoteness of it.

Thousands of hours of work will be needed bring this valley back to life and we hope it will be a place for community and wellbeing that will turn ‘task’ into healing and connection.  The site does not lend itself to becoming a visitor hub, so will be ideal for reaching a smaller audience in a more profound way.

Just a few miles from MWT’s first Rainforest reserve at Creg-y-Cowin, Glion Darragh is part of a landscape scale evolution that will help future-proof our nature and reconnect with food. 

Glion Darragh is open to the public (but be mindful of track closures when forestry work is indertaken). If you want to visit please park tidily on the main road in West Baldwin village and walk up the narrow side road to the reserve entrance at SC 3495 8133 or What 3 Words: begs.merge.dandruff