Grantee Spotlight: Ennia Bosshard & Harrison Carter
On the Edge Fund, Conservationist grantee spotlight
05/05/2025
Rainforests? In the UK? Being brought back from the brink of extinction?!
Ennia Bosshard and Harrison Carter are the co-research directors of the Thousand Year Trust, a charity dedicated to the restoration of temperate rainforest landscapes across the UK. With extensive experience in forest landscape restoration and human-wildlife coexistence, they developed Rainforests on Ropes as an opportunity to challenge the possibilities of temperate rainforest restoration and push conservation science forward.
Ennia’s and Harrison’s work
The UK is home to pockets of temperate rainforest with a wide range of rare species, including lichens, mosses, and fungi. Yet, today these ancient and diverse ecosystems cover less than 1% of the UK’s land area. Restoring these forests has never been more important than now, and we know the best people for the job.
Inspired by methods used for coral restoration (e.g. Coral Gardeners), seaweed farming (e.g. Cornish Seaweed Company) and existing research in the field, On the Edge will support Ennia, Harrison and the wider team to explore the possibility of growing plants on ropes for future planting into newly established and degraded temperate rainforests.
They will first try this in controlled conditions, before trialling this approach in the ancient temperate rainforest of the Cabilla valley in Cornwall. The goal is to place lichen in newly planted and degraded woodlands, accelerating the transition into thriving temperate rainforests.
Name:
Ennia Bosshard & Harrison Carter
Country of origin:
UK
Species of choice:
Key indicator epiphyte species for temperate rainforests
Where to from here?
Catch our Animal Sensemaker episode featuring Stingless bees
In the Amazon and tropical places around the world, armies of stingless bees spend their days collecting nectar from plants and flowers across the forest. Listen here.
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Discover more about how you can get involved with protecting nature’s underdogs, here.
