The aim
To test whether delivering nature restoration can generate long-term income for land managers through the sale of ecosystem services; working with farmers to design nature restoration cases to be assessed for commercial viability.
The location
The Esk Valley, a 36,000 ha catchment in the north of the North York Moors National Park. The River Esk flows through the valley to Whitby and the North Sea, with various tributaries joining along the way. Agriculture has a long history in the Esk Valley. As such, the landscape today is composed mainly of farmland, moorland and woodland. Much of the uplands are used for traditional low-intensity livestock grazing, with some rotational arable farming interspersed into the landscape.
Participants
Delivered by Palladium, North York Moors National Park Authority, Natural Capital Research Ltd, the Environment Agency and members of the Esk Valley Farmers Group.
Esk Valley Farmers Group
The Esk Valley Farmers Group comprises 52 members covering over 10,000 hectares of the Esk catchment. Farming backgrounds cover beef, dairy, sheep and mixed units of both private and tenanted holdings. The group shares knowledge and skills on best practice for land management, as well as forming synergies with internal and external organisations.
The challenge
The Esk Valley is characterised by a mosaic of habitat types including moorland, farmland, grassland, woodland and rivers. There is a distinct boundary between farmland and grassland in the base of the valley and the moorland that straddles the valley top, often physically marked with dry stone walls separating the farmland from the moorland. Patches of woodland are typically small and unconnected, with a higher density of woodland in the lower reaches of the valley. Water quality is rated as moderate to poor, with sediment and agricultural runoff into rivers contributing to poor habitat conditions for species such as the critically endangered freshwater pearl mussel.
The landscape demonstrates great potential for connecting and softening boundaries between distinct habitats, improving water quality and conditions for iconic local species and transitioning in places to grazing patterns that encourage a more species-rich ecosystem to flourish.
The national picture
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report gives a bleak assessment of the climate impacts we are facing, but states that investing in nature can help to close the emissions gap between current decarbonisation progress and the 1.5ºC target. Work to scale up nature-based solutions is therefore urgently needed; the Green Finance Institute calculated a central estimate of £56 billion is required in investment above current public sector commitments for the UK to meet nature-related outcomes in the next ten years.
The future for landowners and farmers is unclear. The UK is currently exiting from the EU farm subsidy payments scheme and transitioning into Defra’s Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS).
Yet many details on how ELMS will work still need to be confirmed. Private payments for environmental outcomes remain at an early stage and the rules for how these can combine with public payments are yet to be determined. Nationally, the UK Government has signalled the need to address the climate and nature emergencies. This includes targets for widespread nature restoration as set out in the UK’s 25 Year Environment Plan and Net Zero Strategy.
The outcomes
The pilot project has enabled the collection of evidence of the opportunities, challenges and financial viability of delivering commercial nature restoration for land managers in the Esk Valley Farmers Group.
These shareable learnings will help inform and guide other interested parties, both in the North York Moors and across the UK, on options for managing land for nature. It will help policy makers gain a better understanding of blended finance, public finance for nature restoration and how to enable policies that support different types of land managers.