Jaunt: Let It Rain
Can the preservation of the Earth’s natural habitat go hand in hand with our own wellbeing? The conservationist and army veteran MERLIN HANBURY-TENISON leads us on a journey of wonder and hope.
Adense mist lies over the valley as my father and I clamber down from the high point of the tor to the river, passing over the scree of granite boulders that litter the slope beneath us. A mizzle of rain is falling, drenching the lichens and mosses, and reducing visibility to perhaps 50 feet. The forest has an ethereal and folkloric quality. At the river we stop and fall to our knees to drink deeply from the pure waters of the Bedalder, the waterbody that flows from the top of Bodmin Moor through this rainforest and out to the sea at Fowey.
Rainforests are the rarest habitat we harbour in the United Kingdom. Defined by their high annual rainfall, native species of trees (predominantly oak), and an abundance of epiphytes growing in the canopy, they are our most important ecosystem for providing a number of services we cannot live without. Not only do they suck more carbon dioxide out of the air than anything else we might restore and protect on these islands, but they provide a home for a cacophonous range of plants, animals and mushrooms. Their densely packed roots prevent the run-off that creates flooding downriver in times of heavy rainfall, but their moist soils also reduce the risk of drought in high summer.
As important as these services are, the reason my 89-year-old father and I are in the Cabilla rainforest on this rather wet day is for the final and, to my mind, most wonderful of reasons. As these British rainforests photosynthesise, they secrete into the air volatile organic compounds that have a remarkable impact on any humans who breathe them in. These terpenes and phytoncides are able to lower human cortisol levels, increase kidney function, boost our immune systems, and trigger a reset from our sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous state into our parasympathetic (rest and digest) state. This is a vital balm for anyone who is endeavouring to heal either physically or psychologically. It can catalyse a return to homeostasis.
We are both case studies of this effect. After a long career as a tropical rainforest explorer and conservationist who focused on the rights of indigenous tribal groups, my father was brought to the brink of death by Covid in 2020. After five weeks in an induced coma he miraculously recovered when the doctors had all but given up any hope, and was restored to vibrant health through daily exercise under the canopy of this, one of Britain’s largest and oldest rainforest reserves. Since his recovery he has climbed Cornwall’s highest point unaided, and recently rowed 22 miles along Cornwall’s border with the rest of England, the River Tamar, on his 89th birthday to raise money for our rainforest charity here — and to prove there is a great deal of life left in the old dog.
My recovery is more psychological in nature. After being blown up by a Taliban I.E.D. in Afghanistan, I retired from the army to work in the heart of London for PwC. The job was hell itself, and in 2017 I was diagnosed with C-P.T.S.D. after suffering a stress-induced breakdown. Restoring this rainforest to ever greater resilience and abundance has seen my own personal health march in step with the ecosystem. As each non-native species was removed, tree planted and keystone species returned, I began to feel my own inner strength and sense of self return. Not to the same place I had been before the fall but in a new, more embodied and connected form. Healing the rainforest healed me.
As we kneel by the river, drinking the pure water while also inhaling the rainforest air, we are both dressed in our own well- worn versions of British expeditionary gear. My father is clad in his customary waxed Barbour jacket, much patched and well loved, over a checked farmer’s shirt and with a set of heavy, dark corduroy trousers absorbing the rain above his wellington boots. I am wearing my Buffalo mountain shirt, the ultimate accompaniment to any climate. It has been with me for more than 20 years, through the deserts of Helmand province to the highlands of Scotland to the rainforests of England’s south-west. On my lower half I have a pair of Fjällräven hunting trousers that are reaching the end of their life and will forever smell faintly of deer gralloch. I have a pair of fawn neoprene MacGaiter gaiters over my old brown army-issue assault boots. The only attire we both share is our matching cloth caps — mandatory uniform on these bleak, windswept upland landscapes.
Since healing ourselves in this ‘tulgey’ sanctuary, my wife and I founded our business, Cabilla Cornwall, which has brought more than 4,000 people into the rainforest for restorative retreats. We have worked extensively with the U.S. military to bring soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. and other mental health challenges to find a peace and calm beneath our oaks.
The most exciting work, however, is being conducted by our charity, the Thousand Year Trust, Britain’s only rainforest-dedicated charity. We are a research organisation that is in the process of building Europe’s first Atlantic temperate rainforest scientific research field station on the edge of the Cabilla valley on Bodmin Moor. It will be a cutting-edge home for academics, researchers and scientists who will now be able to unlock the rainforest code here in Britain. Not only will it enable us to demonstrate fully and finally to politicians and lawmakers how important our rainforests are for climate mitigation and biodiversity abundance, it will provide the irrefutable bridge between these habitats and human mental and physical health. It will give us the data needed to protect and expand this ecosystem for all future generations to benefit from.
We are all a part of nature, not apart from it. What this means for broken men like my father and me, and for countless others who have stayed at Cabilla with us, is to become participants in our landscape, not merely observers of it. A sense of purpose and achievement can catalyse our restoration back to a more empowered and natural form of masculinity than might any other self-help tool. Could healing our rainforests be the answer to healing the modern man?
