Funding the acceleration of rewilding
By funding rewilding projects across Britain Rewilding Britain is playing a crucial role in scaling up nature’s recovery.
Unlocking next-level rewilding
Pioneering rewilding projects the length and breadth of Britain are already making strides in delivering large-scale landscape recovery schemes, creating new, diverse nature-based employment and enterprise opportunities and helping meet crucial nature and climate targets. Yet so often we hear that they’re struggling to navigate a confusing funding landscape, that government funding schemes are under-delivering, and that rewilding projects and potential funders are frequently not finding each other.
That’s why we’ve taken the important step at Rewilding Britain to introduce a number of funding opportunities that foster the scale and ambition of rewilding projects across Britain.
£700K
funding for 50 rewilding projects
Introducing the Rewilding Innovation and Challenge Funds
To date, these two vital funds have supported close to 50 rewilding projects with over £700,000, funding carbon assessments, seagrass restoration, education programmes and trophic species reintroductions.
An essential part of both is that they act as a blueprint to inspire others — both for practitioners and investors. We ensure that the invaluable knowledge and experience gained by the recipients is shared with rewilders across Britain through the Rewilding Network. Together, we can create a wilder Britain faster by supporting the many projects that are awaiting urgent funding.
The Innovation Fund
Through the Rewilding Innovation Fund we’ve awarded over half a million pounds to more than 40 rewilding initiatives around Britain since 2021. The funding has not only enabled a variety of vital activities to happen, from lynx feasibility studies to marine restoration, community engagement to drone surveying, but has been instrumental in unlocking future financing for some projects.
The Challenge Fund
The Rewilding Challenge Fund takes an even bolder approach, awarding £100,000 annually to a project that’s larger than 1,000ha and which delivers lasting social, economic and ecological benefits. The first two recipients of this fund are doing some incredible big-picture thinking:
Wilder Blean Initiative: At Wilder Blean, home to the UK’s first reintroduced European bison, Kent Wildlife Trust is aiming to rewild tens of thousands of hectares, including one of the largest continuous areas of ancient woodland in southern England.
Sussex Bay: This collaboration of more than 200 groups, organisations and partners has developed a pioneering seascape-scale strategy to create a healthy marine ecosystem for 100 miles of coastline from Selsey Bill to Camber Sands.
Investing for impact
In addition to our Rewilding Innovation and Challenge Funds, we’ve also supported a number of projects where we felt we could have impact in helping advance rewilding in Britain.
Wilder Seas for Cornwall
The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Marine and Coastal Partnership brings together a group of stakeholders to try to create a wilder seas vision for the Cornwall coast. Our funding has helped support engagement with key partners to work towards seascape scale change.
Taking tauros to Scotland
We’re supporting Trees for Life to develop the feasibility of bringing tauros to their Dundreggan Estate. The project aims to test the impact of a tauros herd exhibiting natural behaviours on the rewilding project.
Developing a framework for monitoring rewilding
We’ve been working in partnership with five pilot sites to test and develop our forthcoming Rewilding Monitoring Framework. From conducting drone-based LiDAR surveys to bioacoustic data collection, honing how sites gather this vital information will help us measure change across multiple rewilding projects.
Making strides in wildcat reintroduction
We’re supporting Wildwood’s captive breeding programme for wildcats. The aim of the research is to improve captive breeding approaches and monitor wildcat behaviour – and the information they gather will help advance reintroduction techniques across Britain.
Enabling the Wild Peak partnership
The Wild Peak is an ambitious rewilding initiative based in the Peak District that’s working in close partnership with landowners, local communities and project leaders to inspire and implement a landscape-scale, nature-led approach to nature’s recovery. We supported the start-up phase of the initiative.
Supporting Yearn Stane’s 10,000-hectare vision
We’re proud to have supported the Yearn Stane project to engage with local communities and stakeholders, helping to develop a co-designed vision for the area. The project aims to enhance the ecology of a large area on the west side of Scotland’s central belt, including Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire and Inverclyde, covering around 10,000 hectares.
Backing lynx to Scotland
The Lynx to Scotland project is assessing the feasibility of reintroducing the Eurasian lynx to the Scottish Highlands. A big idea like this requires collaboration and a comprehensive approach. That’s why we’re providing funding to the partnership, which comprises Trees for Life, Scotland: The Big Picture and the Lifescape Project.
Let's accelerate nature's recovery
Explore our Rewilding Financing Report
Uncover our blueprint for a game-changing shift in funding and investment for rewilding.
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