In the three years of our work in the Highlands, we have benefited from many interactions with the Scottish Land Commission. We have read their reports, and endeavoured to incorporate their wisdom into our work with local communities on and around the land where we work. Highlands Rewilding empathises with the land-ownership inequalities that drive the commission's work, and we hope that our mass-ownership model of land-ownership will make a contribution in trying to defuse it in the years ahead. We came away from our most recent interaction, with the entire board of the Commission and its sen ..read more

Jeremy Leggett, former oilman and now founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, invites past and present oil-industry executives to spend oil’s ‘guilt’ money on rewilding Who is Jeremy Leggett? From oilman to eco-entrepreneur “Most oil-industry executives must surely see that atonement is needed now. And a great route to redemption is investment in the battle for nature-recovery”, says Leggett. Talking of his own journey from a background in fossil fuels to a pioneering career, working at the forefront of the clean energy revolution, Dr Leggett said: “As the earth’s atmosphere warmed, like most ..read more

Resilient food production that strengthens ecosystem services.  Daniel Holm, a Highlands Rewilding ranger, describes how this relatively unknown agroforestry practice can help small areas of land produce a high diversity of high value crops, discussing the heritage fruit and nut varieties chosen for establishment on a Highland estate. A food forest is a perennial intercropping system using a diverse mix of trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, tubers, mushrooms and annuals. Once mature it can also incorporate animals. The structure of a food forest with all of these layers simulates that of a natu ..read more

By Nikki and James Yoxall, Co-Heads of Regenerative Agriculture Grampian Graziers have been grazing cattle at Beldorney for just under a year now, using an adaptive grazing management approach to support increases in biodiversity and improve soil health. Over the winter, this has included grazing targeted areas for wader bird habitat and conservation of species rich grassland and is now focused on bale grazing. Bale grazing is much more common in North America, but a growing number of UK farmers are now adopting this approach to managing their cattle over winter. When bale grazing, farmers wil ..read more

Highlands Rewilding’s Response to the Jan 18th Guardian Article “Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows”.   Summary Highlands Rewilding welcomes the recent Guardian, Die Zeit and SourceMaterial investigation into carbon offset credits. We believe that continuous and rigorous scrutiny is essential to ensure that carbon and other nature-based credits genuinely contribute to climate change mitigation and biodiversity recovery. This investigation raises a number of issues that we see as particularly important: One-to-one offset ..read more

The second of a series of short films we will release each week during our campaign to scale nature recovery in Scotland. Invest in Scotland’s Soils Don’t invest unless you are prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more. Approver: ShareIn FRN 603332 [19/01/2023]   In less than a year, at Beldorney, we have seen first-hand how nature-friendly grazing boosts plant diversity, releasing the pressure on compacted soils so that water can be absorbed and biodiversity can begin t ..read more

Dr Jeremy Leggett, Highlands Rewilding ‘My Great Hope’ is the first of a series of short films we will release each week during our campaign to scale nature recovery in Scotland. Invest to Help Nature Fight Back Don’t invest unless you are prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.   Let me tell you my great fear. It is that young rangers we hire today will live to see these Bunloit forests burn tomorrow. So too these Bunloit peatlands. Hardly a pollinator will they find ..read more

Our second Natural Capital Report (2022) follows one year on from our first report and focuses on Beldorney Estate in Aberdeenshire. It paints a picture of tremendous potential for increasing both carbon storage and biodiversity. Summary Once again, we have worked with a range of innovative organisations using cutting-edge methods to assess biodiversity and carbon stocks. While this report focuses on Beldorney, the results give an unprecedented insight into both our projects and the methods we can use to maximise benefits for the environment and people. Through this work, we aim to develop st ..read more

How becoming a ‘citizen rewilder’ with Highlands Rewilding can benefit the planet, the economy and local communities More than a year after Glasgow hosted Cop26, and with this year’s climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt having drawn to a close, there is still much to be done if the world is to meet its net zero targets. Scotland aims to reach net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2045, and an initiative that is making a contribution to sustainability in a range of innovative ways is Highlands Rewilding. The Invernesshire-headquartered company says it aims to rewild and re-people ..read more

Taking Rewilding To Scale Over the next ten years, Scotland will need £20 billion of capital in order to stop biodiversity decline and best use its peat, trees, soil etc., to soak up greenhouse gases, according to the Green Finance Institute. Sounds a lot, does it not? But what price a liveable future and social cohesion? We will have neither if we allow biodiversity collapse and climate meltdown to run their course. At Highlands Rewilding, we are going to do our best to contribute. Between December and February, we are seeking a second round of private capital for our ongoing effort to make ..read more