The Rewilding Innovation Fund’s biggest boost yet

Seagrass meadows are some of our best allies in addressing climate change, with the ability to support seascape scale change. However, in Britain they’re declining – harming marine life and reducing carbon storage. Cornwall Wildlife Trust is starting the vital work needed to restore this important species.

They’ll use funding to carry out a detailed seagrass restoration feasibility study, providing crucial insights to guide where and how future restoration efforts take place.

Convened by SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, Loch Abar Mòr is a landscape-scale nature restoration partnership in the West Highlands, committed to enabling communities to thrive in an ecologically diverse and climate-resilient landscape.

Our funding will help them deliver engagement events, undertake surveys to identify the most impactful opportunities for nature recovery, develop projects with partners and roll out the first collaborative restoration activities under the partnership.

The Penpont Project​’s mission helps reverse devastating ecological breakdown, while creating a global gold-standard for youth-led environmental action. Launched in 2019, it’s the UK’s largest rewilding initiative led by intergenerational decision making.

Funding will allow them to set up an inclusive Forest Camp, giving young people a place to immerse themselves in nature and develop and deliver nature restoration actions. 

The South England Bison Project is exploring the feasibility of returning bison to Dorset. Led by Wildwood Trust in Kent, this project will draw on learnings from the Wilder Blean project, the first bison reintroduction initiative in the UK led by the Wildwood Trust and Kent Wildlife Trust.

Our funding will support Wildwood Trust in creating a plan, laying out the rationale and stages to reintroducing bison. This work will also produce more general guidance for bison reintroduction that can be made available for practitioners across Britain.

Wye Valley Wilding is a network working to catalyse the restoration of nature in the River Wye catchment by increasing the number, size and connectivity of wild places. To accelerate their progress and increase support, they’ll use funds to enhance their events programme, increase rewilding land in the catchment, understand barriers to rewilding and explore local partnership opportunities. 

Community Interest Company Climate Action North wants to grow their North East Rewilding Network and spread awareness of the power of communities in rewilding. Thanks to funding, they’ll be establishing a Rewilding Hub as a new base for the North East Rewilding Network. They’ll also be taking community rewilding ​‘on tour’ through four key roadshows.

Tireragan Trust is launching a project to restore temperate rainforest on the Isle of Mull in southwest Scotland. The Tireragan site supports a variety of habitats such as blanket bog, wet and dry heath, calcareous grassland and fragments of temperate rainforest. 

Funding will help the Trust – a member of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture’s Northwoods Rewilding Network – to restore these fragments to a healthy and resilient temperate rainforest rich in biodiversity by enabling them to complete a woodland drone survey, tree species mapping and form a tree seeds and cuttings collection. 

Like beavers, European elk are major ecosystem engineers and have a profound impact on their environment. As woodland foragers and wetland grazers, they promote natural regeneration of woodland and maintain open clearings. 

While both species frequent freshwater wetlands, Britain hasn’t had a habitat containing both beaver and elk in over 4000 years. This project by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trusts is assessing the potential to change that by translocating elk into two beaver enclosures. Funds will support the evidence building needed for the reintroduction and provide guidance to interested practitioners.

Clinton Devon Estates are looking to establish natural processes across 270-hectares of their land in east Devon, linking three parts of the Pebblebed Heaths National Nature Reserve and accelerating and expanding nature recovery at landscape-scale. The Clinton Estates form part of the Heaths to Sea landscape recovery project and the rewilding of these 270-hectares will contribute to the project’s aims.

Our funding will enable Clinton Estates to develop a detailed feasibility study and costed business management plans.

Charity Trees for Life, whose mission is to to rewild the Scottish Highlands, want to bring beavers back to the area. They’re working with communities and partners to ensure beavers are reintroduced to habitats where they can thrive, creating biodiversity-rich, carbon-storing wetlands that will support other wildlife and help combat the climate emergency. 

They’re using the funding to identify appropriate release sites, connect with the community and assess the likely impact beavers would have on surrounding land. 

Charity Heal Rewilding wants to foster genuine community ownership and stewardship of their Heal Somerset rewilding site. They aim to do this through three projects: a Community Nature Barn for priority underserved groups, Village Fields for local residents and the Heal Future Advisory Panel for young people striving to work in the rewilding sector.

The funding will support these three projects through staff costs and resources for community visitors, including spare waterproofs for children, binoculars and animal whistles. 

Building on the successes of the South of Scotland Golden Eagle Project, Restoring Upland Nature is exploring the possible return of golden eagles in other parts of Britain. They’ll use the funding to develop a detailed project proposal for the reintroduction and establish partnerships with key stakeholders. They hope that building strong foundations during this developmental phase will give them the best chance of delivering tangible results. 

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT) has a vision for a Wilder Western Dales. They want to amplify the impact of their 1500-hectare site, Wild Ingleborough, by making it the core of a 50,000-hectare area focused on nature recovery, wildlife-friendly farming and regenerative agriculture.

Before YWT can achieve this vision, they need to change hearts and minds in the area and establish a coalition of the willing for a Wilder Western Dales. They’ll use our funding to do this, resulting in a Lantra-accredited rewilding course which will be used to provide advisors with skills in landscape-scale wildlife recovery advice.