William Collins lands book on Britain's lost rainforests by Shrubsole

William Collins has landed a book by environmental campaigner Guy Shrubsole looking at Britain's lost rainforests. 

Shoaib Rokadiya, editorial director, bought world English rights to The Lost Rainforests of Britain from James Macdonald Lockhart at Anthony Harwood. The book will publish in October 2022. 

The publisher said: "After moving from London to Devon last year, Guy Shrubsole discovered an extraordinary habitat that he had never come across before: temperate rainforest. Britain, Guy discovered over the coming months, was once a rainforest nation. 

"This is the story of a unique habitat that has become so denuded and fragmented that most people today don’t realise it exists. The Lost Rainforests of Britain takes the reader from the Atlantic oakwoods of the Western Highlands, down through the Lake District, parts of the Peak District, Wales and into Devon and Cornwall to trace our unacknowledged, unmapped and undervalued rainforests, and shows them how they might be restored to the places they once were. 

"The book deal comes as the UK prepares to host the UN climate conference, COP26, this November, at which protecting and restoring rainforests will be a hot topic."

Shrubsole said: "From the gnarled, moss-clad oaks of Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor to the forgotten rainforest gorges of north Wales, I’ve fallen in love with this magical habitat. Once upon a time, it may have covered a fifth of Britain. Rainforests permeate our culture in forgotten ways: my book will feature trespassing botanists, Welsh wizards, lichen geeks, Sherlock Holmes, Romantic poets, Celtic druids, rewilding commons and much else besides. I hope it will inspire readers into joining a new movement to bring back Britain’s rainforests."

Rokadiya added: "The Lost Rainforests of Britain is a mesmerising chronicle of our land—its past, present and future—as we have never before encountered it. With the tragic and shameful devastation of the Amazon continuing apace, this is a timely and unmissable intervention on why we must conserve Britain’s own remaining fragments of globally rare habitat, before it is too late."