Climate & Environment

Here come the rainforests again: €12m project aims for ambitious restoration

A West Clare environmental group is working with local communities and landowners to encourage the reintroduction of native woodland

Ray Ó Foghlú, project lead, and Matt Smith, chief executive of Hometree, at the first Wild Atlantic Rainforest Project site at Knockaunbaun, Maam, Co Galway. Picture: Cathal Noonan

An environmental charity has launched a €12 million project to restore more than 4,000 acres of land across eight sites in the west of Ireland in order to create a temperate rainforest.

Hometree, a not-for-profit environmental organisation based in west Clare, said its Wild Atlantic Rainforest Project aims to establish and conserve permanent temperate rainforests by facilitating the natural regeneration of woodlands.

It will do this by removing grazing pressure, fencing off remnant pockets of ...