The CreditNATURE project, which will see Ecosulis and partners work together with the Bunloit Estate in the Scottish Highlands, could unlock new revenue streams for rewilding initiatives by allowing them to issue carbon, biodiversity and rewilding credits. The project has been funded through Innovate UK's Sustainable Innovation Fund.
Transformative funding
There are now calls to plant a trillion trees to combat climate change. We shouldn't forget that such reforestation could (and should) enhance biodiversity as well.
Complemented by emissions cuts, reforestation has been touted as a potential solution (or partial solution) to climate change, thanks to its ability to sequester carbon. But it is important to ensure that the forests which are planted not only store carbon, but benefit biodiversity too.
Monitoring is usually undertaken as part of a project, however all too often it is not designed to provide information relevant to the questions being asked. If we can’t measure the impact that we are having on biodiversity, then how can we make informed decisions on how to improve it? Even if that project is a rewilding one, therefore open ended, it is still important to know what is happening to biodiversity as a result of our actions (or inaction).
Nature in the United Kingdom is in decline. Populations of priority species have decreased by more than 60% since the 1970s, and there is no evidence of a reversal in this trend. UK landscapes are under more pressure than ever to deliver housing, infrastructure and food. Several species, including once common animals such as the European hedgehog, are in danger of disappearing forever. We need to ensure that policy and conservation methods protect the best of the biodiversity that we have left within the UK.
Defra are looking to release an upgraded biodiversity impact calculator - the Defra Biodiversity Metric - to assist with the quantitative assessment of net gain and no net loss. Yet its failure to assess biodiversity means Ecosulis remains one step ahead. Sara King, Our Biodiversity Assessment Specialist, provides a summary in this article.
A Burkina Faso farmer shows off her onion harvest
The UK government recently stated its ambition to "leave our environment in a better state than we inherited it", and to "not just protect and conserve, but enhance and restore habitats and landscapes". Adopting the slogan "Protect the best, recover the rest", unifies these ambitions. We not only need to protect the best regulations, policies and natural areas developed to date, but also forge ahead and engage new audiences in new conservation narratives suited to an era of accelerating change.
Today, the largest terrestrial carnivore in the United Kingdom is a badger. Aside from the fact that I love badgers, wouldn't it be great to have a little more diversity in our landscapes?
The damaging effect humans have had on natural resources has been more pronounced in the last half-a-century with 60% of the world's biodiversity being decimated. Severe climate change has been one of the fall-outs of this destruction of nature by man and one that we need to reverse. The UK hasn't been spared the effects of such changes as revealed by the State of Nature report recently published. Since the 1970s the UK has witnessed one of the highest losses of biodiversity on the planet.