£1 million for Britain’s wild future

This month we’re incredibly proud to share a major milestone: our Rewilding Innovation Fund has officially awarded over £1 million to rewilding projects across England, Scotland and Wales.

This figure is a symbol of a movement that’s grown exponentially. From the rugged hills of the Scottish Borders to the kelp forests of the Devon coast, this £1 million represents every seed planted, every species reintroduced, every piece of evidence gathered and each step taken for rewilding. 

We launched the Rewilding Innovation Fund five years ago, because we identified a critical gap between the need to move at speed and scale and what government policy was achieving. In essence, nature’s collapse is moving faster than political systems can respond, held back by bureaucracy and a lack of focus on environmental issues. While changing policy is one of our key objectives, we knew we also had to work directly to support those rewilding on the ground.

Through our conversations with practitioners within the 1,000-strong Rewilding Network, we found people looking for new approaches, passionate community groups and land managers who had bold, brilliant ideas but lacked the means to test them. They were stuck at the starting line; not for lack of will, but for lack of the initial capital needed to truly innovate, in a space where they could fail as long as they learned from it. 

By providing grants of up to £15,000, we’ve been able to remove many of those barriers. Whether it’s a feasibility study, a community engagement project or trialling new technology, this funding helps make rewilding happen – and can provide the seed of change to unlock significant opportunities for projects.

The 86 projects we’ve funded so far show just how diverse rewilding can be. It’s not a ​‘one size fits all’ approach: rewilding is a tapestry of local solutions that are also part of multi-level ​‘systems change’ at a national and global level. You can explore them all on our website. 

Together we’re helping create a world where Borders Forest Trust’s Discover Nature Award, a youth-led initiative north of Moffat in the Scottish Borders, is reconnecting young adults with nature. A world where Devon County Council is co-designing a marine rewilding roadmap with local fishers to restore both seabed habitats and fishing stocks. A world where landowners in Ceredigion are using our new Rewilding Monitoring Framework to build the evidence base that will show their neighbours that nature-led recovery is not a risk, but a sound financial decision.

By catalysing these projects, we’re demonstrating that rewilding delivers measurable outcomes. It builds climate resilience against floods and wildfires, secures our water supplies and creates new, green opportunities for local economies. It’s about choosing a future where we thrive as part of nature, rather than at its expense. 

While we celebrate this £1 million milestone, we recognise that the journey is really only just beginning. As more people start to rewild, demand for support starts to outpace the funds we have available. For every project we fund, many more are waiting in the wings, ready to transform their local patch of Britain.

We want to say a huge thank you to the visionary individuals, businesses, project managers, landowners, volunteers and more who have contributed to the fund or delivered on its mission. You’re the reason these projects are currently breathing life back into our landscapes. Here’s to the next million pounds, and to a Britain where nature is allowed to lead the way.