National Parks turn to business for green investment

The 15 national park authorities in the UK have announced they are looking to carry out a massive programme of nature restoration, using a green funding platform which will draw investment from global companies.

The national parks have issued a joint statement outlining their collective commitment to tackle the climate emergency and biodiversity, with the goal of making them net-zero as places by 2045.

To achieve an increase in the scale of work they are able to carry out, the parks have said they are collaborating with a company called Palladium, to leverage private finance into nature restoration through a new facility called Revere.

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They have already identified £239m of nature restoration projects, involving peatland, woodland, wetland and grassland restoration that will require funding by 2030.

The idea is that projects will be carried out in partnership with farmers and landowners, who should be able to access new income streams by selling carbon credits and other ecosystem services.

However, this does come at a time when farmers are being repeatedly warned that they should be wary of rushing into carbon credit agreements because the market is only in its infancy.

Peatland restoration

One of the first projects to be announced will be a partnership between national parks and Santander to fund the restoration of 220ha of peatland in the Cairngorms National Park.

Funding has also been secured from Gatwick Airport and Southern Co-op to help pay for the conversion of hundreds of acres of arable farmland in the South Downs National Park to woodland pasture.

Other major companies which have already signed up to the Revere platform include Estée Lauder (UK & Ireland) and Capita.

Naomi Conway, development director for the National Parks Partnerships, said: “As COP26 approaches, we want to remind the UK of the role that the national parks can play in fighting the impacts of climate change and improving biodiversity.

“This pioneering private sector support will get us closer to achieving the scale and pace of nature restoration that the UK so urgently needs.”

Richard Leafe, chief executive of the Lake District National Park Authority, added that national parks were uniquely placed to lead on addressing the climate crisis.

“Our parks are ideal testbeds for academic and scientific research into pioneering sustainable land management techniques, which can be trialled and then rolled out at scale, to address the causes of climate change and mitigate its effects,” he said.