High-tech drones have sowed 75,000 native tree seeds in Cornwall and Devon, which will triple the rainforest cover.
This project – led by the Woodland Trust with the South West Rainforest Alliance – has allowed new areas to be reached, as the drones are able to reach areas inaccessible for human planting by hand.
Native rainforest tree seeds were scattered, including pedunculate oak, alder, wild cherry, downy birch and hazel.
Drones weighing 110kg carried up to 58kg of seeds over the hills around Bodmin, covering 11 hectares of land in eight hours. The drones are potentially much faster and cheaper at dispersing seeds around landscapes than volunteers.
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The Woodland Trust hopes this pioneering new seeding technique will help triple the area of temperate rainforest in Devon and Cornwall from 8% to 24% of land area by 2050.
"Rainforest once covered 75% of Devon and Cornwall but we have lost 90% of it," says Sam Manning, project officer for South West rainforests at the Woodland Trust.
"These are among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. They are biodiversity hotspots, home to over 2,000 species of lichen. Sadly, rainforests cover just 1% of the Earth’s land surface, and we are one of only a small handful of rainforest nations left on Earth."
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