The funding gap for biodiversity and nature restoration is significant. The Green Finance Institute estimates that nature-recovery targets in Scotland alone, for example, will require some £20bn (US$25bn) of investment by 2032. “That is a huge target, and most of it will have to come from financial institutions like pension funds, other investment funds, insurance companies, banks and the like. So, we’re working on the business case for rewilding, making it more investable, and helping to attract billions into nature restoration. If this can be done at scale and to high scientific standards it can divert money from environmentally damaging activities into beneficial ones,” she says. 

“Businesses are under continued pressure from investors, consumers, employees and regulators to showcase the safeguarding of nature and its biodiversity,” says Dr Chiami. “And funding to protect and regenerate nature and biodiversity is woefully short—the funding gap is between US$500bn-700bn per year. So where will funding to protect nature come from? Certainly not the governments, as they are all strapped for cash and are highly indebted.” 

That leaves the investment motive. Dr Chiami says that the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report and the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report “clearly show that nature is the only realistic mitigator of climate change, and given the commitments by countries and companies to go carbon-neutral or -zero in the short term, the demand for nature sequestration services is skyrocketing, as evidenced by the price of carbon exceeding US$100 per tonne,” he says. 

High-quality nature credits, which lead with biodiversity and community benefits and include carbon offsetting as part of the package, is one emerging way that businesses can fill the funding gap and invest in nature restoration while realising financial returns. These types of credits also trade at a premium because they are more complicated to verify and include additional co-benefits beyond carbon.

If done well, rewilding can also support supply-chain resilience. By restoring natural ecosystems and protecting biodiversity, rewilding can help ensure the long-term availability of important natural resources, such as timber, water and agricultural products. Rewilding as part of regenerative agriculture can even improve agricultural yields while protecting small farmers against global trade shocks, such as increased prices for chemical fertilisers. 

“Arguments that food security requires land to be farmed and not used for conservation are false dichotomies: land can do both, and food security depends fundamentally on biodiversity conservation [and] restoration, and climate-change mitigation,” says Ms Mills. 

It’s not a question of either/or. Projects in the Scottish Highlands practise regenerative agriculture that integrates mob grazing, forest gardening and agroforestry to produce a diversity of high-value crops while also supporting natural ecosystems, drawing down carbon and increasing biodiversity.