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Rewilding Britain launches new innovation fund to boost community nature schemes


By John Davidson

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Bunloit Estate is the site of a carbon capture project that benefited from a pilot of the Rewilding Innovation Fund.
Bunloit Estate is the site of a carbon capture project that benefited from a pilot of the Rewilding Innovation Fund.

Community groups can apply for a new funding stream aimed at improving nature and biodiversity, with a focus on people's health and wellbeing.

The Rewilding Innovation Fund, run by Rewilding Britain, is looking to enhance land and marine nature recovery projects in Scotland, England and Wales.

The fund will be given to innovative projects seeking to create new opportunities for large-scale nature restoration, such as through community engagement, business plans or use of technology.

Sara King, Rewilding Britain’s rewilding network manager, said: “The Rewilding Innovation Fund is being launched in response to the rapidly growing thirst for information, advice and funding for rewilding as a powerful way of tackling the nature and climate emergencies, while creating real social and economic benefits for people.

“We particularly want to support community projects, because locally-led action is central to helping nature recover in ways that work for people and communities, and for creating connectivity of nature across the country.”

Projects working to apply the principles of rewilding and that are part of Rewilding Britain’s growing 'Rewilding Network' can apply for the fund.

Land-based projects need to be at least 40 hectares in size, while marine projects can be of any size. Rewilding Britain expects to fund 15 to 20 projects during 2022, with up to £15,000 to be considered for each individual project.

The Rewilding Network – comprising more than 100 projects –enables a wide range of community groups, landowners, land managers, farmers and local groups to share rewilding ideas, experiences and expertise.

A pilot of the Rewilding Innovation Fund last summer saw £55,000 distributed between various innovative projects, including a Treeconomy project on using pioneering light detection techniques to measure the carbon capture of scrub and wood pasture at the Bunloit Estate near Drumnadrochit.

The new fund comes at a time when rewilding is seeing huge levels of support from the public, according to the charity. A recent YouGov poll commissioned by Rewilding Britain showed that four in five Britons (81 per cent) support rewilding.

Rewilding Britain defines rewilding as the large-scale restoration of nature to the point it can take care of itself – restoring habitats and natural processes, and where appropriate reintroducing missing species.

The charity is calling for major nature recovery across at least 30 per cent of Britain’s land and sea by 2030, with five per cent of this being the rewilding of native forest, peatland, grasslands, wetlands, rivers and coastal areas, with no loss of productive farmland. The remaining 25 per cent would support nature-positive and regenerative farming and other uses that benefit local economies while allowing nature to flourish.

Applications for the Rewilding Innovation Fund close on March 31, with money awarded to those with the potential for the highest impact for people and nature. There will be two further rounds for applications to the fund in 2022.

The fund has been made possible through funding from the Dormywood Trust, Evolution Education Trust, The Vintry, Charles Langdale and others.


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