The last fragments of ancient Irish rainforests may face a new threat … trees

As commercial monocultures increase, ecologists are calling for the remaining splinters of native woodland to be identified, protected - and expanded

• Photographs by Rob Stothard

This could almost be part of Lapland, up here," says retired researcher John Spence, approaching a clearing in the Correl Glen nature reserve in Fermanagh, near Northern Ireland's land border with the county of Leitrim. You could make a Nordic movie here and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

Spence pauses to point out oak, hazel, birch, ash and alder trees, along with a series of rare filmy" ferns, wild strawberry bushes and honeysuckle. There are well over 100 species of lichen in this small patch of temperate rainforest alone.

A path leads towards a sitka spruce forest in Glenboy, near Manorhamilton, in Leitrim