Government announces impending launch of Landscape Recovery pilot projects

On 6 January 2022, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs released plans for the imminent launch of 15 pilot projects under the Landscape Recovery scheme which will focus on two themes, recovering England’s threatened native species and restoring England’s rivers and streams.

The Landscape Recovery scheme is one of three schemes under the Environmental Land Management (ELM) umbrella being developed and intended to support long-term, large scale land use change projects and habitat restoration.

The other schemes are Local Nature Recovery and the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI). SFI began piloting in 2021 before its launch in 2022.

Little detail has as yet been provided, but the expected benefits from the Landscape Recovery pilot are:

• The creation of 10,000 hectares of restored wildlife habitat.
• Carbon savings between 25 to 50 kilotonnes per year – roughly equivalent to taking between 12,000 – 25,000 cars off the road.
• Improved status of around half of the most threatened species in England

In relation to the final outstanding strand of ELM, the Local Nature Recovery scheme, the government states that it will be trialed in 2023 with a full roll-out across the country from 2024. Local Nature Recovery is the successor to the Countryside Stewardship scheme in England.

It will reward farmers taking action at a local level and working together to tackle issues such as water pollution by reducing run-off, mitigating flood risk by installing flood reservoirs, restoring peat or wetland areas, and adding trees and hedgerows to fields.

All the environmental schemes will be voluntary, so farmers can decide which aspects are right for them.

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