On a damp Tuesday in May, a BBC film crew followed our rainforest team into Glenan Community Woodland. A few days later, the story had reached an estimated half a billion people worldwide.

It began on 19 May, when the BBC Scotland crew arrived at Glenan Community Woodland in West Cowal to film with our team for what would become a major BBC News feature. It was a classic Scottish rainforest day, grey skies, dripping moss, and midges in full force. Undeterred, our Rainforest Manager Ian, Rainforest Volunteer Co-ordinator Heather, Stuart, Lee and Calum from our Rainforest Squad, and local naturalist and citizen scientist Ben were on hand to talk about what makes this habitat so extraordinary and why recording what lives here matters so much. Rhyddian, ranger at Glenan, also joined the day, guiding the crew to the best spots for filming and making sure they got to see the woodland at its most special. A huge thank you to them all for giving their time and expertise so generously. 

The footage and interviews fed into a BBC News Online article by journalist Kevin Keane, published on 22 May, about our West Cowal Habitat Regeneration Project, the first detailed biological survey of the area in half a century. The numbers were striking: 171 volunteer citizen scientists had uploaded 3,421 sightings of 1,109 species to the iNaturalist platform since the project launched in June 2024, including glow worms, slime moulds and globally rare lichens.

From there, the story took on a life of its own.

             

From Glenan to global

The BBC News article went live in the early hours of 22 May, reaching an audience of over 146 million, and spread fast. By mid-morning it was running in BBC Breakfast bulletins on BBC Scotland. By lunchtime it had reached BBC News at One, with Heather speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's lunchtime (from 1:17:55) and drive time programmes about the role volunteers play in protecting and regenerating Scotland's rainforest. By early evening, Reporting Scotland had broadcast the wider story of Scotland's rainforest, featuring Ian speaking to camera about the significance of what had been found and the threats the habitat still faces.

That same evening, over 40 BBC national and local radio stations across the UK carried the story in their news bulletins, from BBC Radio 4 (from 27:53) to stations as far afield as Devon, Derby, Suffolk and Shetland. The citizen science project, and West Cowal specifically, was named in the majority of those broadcasts.

The following day, The Times ran a full feature by journalist Aaliyah Ahmed, both in the Scottish print edition and online, under the headline “The rare glow worms discovered in Scotland’s rainforest.” The piece included extensive quotes from Ian and described the iNaturalist project in detail, alongside striking photography from the forest above Loch Fyne. It reached an online audience of over 12 million.

From there the story crossed borders. Yahoo! News carried it to an estimated audience of over 376 million. Yahoo Australia, Yahoo Singapore and Malaysia Yahoo all ran versions of the piece. It appeared on Flipboard, and was picked up by the Nagaland Post in India.

By the time the week was out, coverage of Scotland’s rainforest, and of West Cowal specifically, had been picked up across print, online, TV and radio, with a cumulative potential audience reach running into the hundreds of millions.

Why it resonated

Across all outlets, a few themes came through clearly.

• The scale of the discovery. More than 1,100 species recorded in a single corner of Argyll, by volunteers with smartphones and an app, in the first survey of its kind in 50 years. That combination, the richness of what was found, and the simplicity of how, caught people’s attention.
• The global rarity of the habitat. As Ian put it in The Times: “The specklebelly lichens are incredibly rare, globally rare. They are a strong sign of high-quality rainforest sites.” NatureScot was also quoted widely, noting that Scotland’s temperate rainforest is as significant as tropical rainforest, but even rarer.
• The role of volunteers. Heather Morrison, our Volunteer Co-ordinator, was quoted in the BBC piece explaining how the data was helping identify fragments of rainforest that weren’t previously known to exist. The iNaturalist platform, and the 171 people who used it, was central to every version of the story.
• The urgency of protection. Reporting Scotland framed the project in the context of the Scottish Government’s upcoming nature targets. The Times explored the threats from deer grazing and invasive rhododendron. Ian’s description of rhododendron as creating an “extinction-level event” for rainforest habitat was widely reported.

        

Part of something bigger

The West Cowal iNaturalist project has always been about more than recording what’s there. It’s about building the evidence base to protect and regenerate one of the world’s most significant, and most threatened, habitats.

The media coverage this week put that story in front of a global audience. It named ACT, named West Cowal, named the West Cowal Habitat Regeneration Project, and put Argyll’s rainforest on the map in a way that hadn’t happened before.

We’re grateful to everyone who made it possible: the 171 volunteers who have given their time and curiosity to this project, to Ian and Heather for speaking so compellingly to the media, and to the BBC Scotland team for telling the story with such care and enthusiasm. 

This work sits within a much bigger picture. The West Cowal Habitat Regeneration Project is part of the Alliance for Scotland’s Rainforest, a network of more than 40 organisations, all working together to restore and protect this internationally important habitat. We’re proud to be part of that network and grateful to all of the ASR partners for their support.

Not bad for a damp Tuesday in Argyll.

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