Eunomia worked closely with Natural England, National Landscapes, and their partners to scope the potential for a regional partnership that will help drive nature recovery and climate resilience at scale in the South West of England.
Natural England and its partners are working to put the South West firmly and sustainably on the path to nature recovery, in line with local ambitions as well as national goals expressed in the Environmental Improvement Plan and Net Zero Strategy. The large-scale partnership Nature North has already demonstrated the effectiveness of an approach which encourages partnerships between the public, private, and third sectors and which channels finance into projects that restore and enhance ecosystems at an aggregated scale to bring efficiencies and attract larger investors.[1]
Eunomia gathered evidence and conducted a scoping exercise to clarify how a similar regional partnership could support nature recovery in the South West and how that might work in practice.
To build an evidence base, we engaged with a range of regional stakeholders to gauge support for the concept and gather feedback on a potential partnership’s vision, role, governance structure, and projects. We also scoped ongoing nature recovery projects in the South West, focusing mainly on biodiversity and climate change mitigation.
We found that Nature South West could boost the flow of green finance into regional nature recovery projects by:
- helping to scale up existing projects
- matching buyers and investors with suppliers
- providing strategic direction for projects
- fostering collaboration between stakeholders
- acting as a repository and disseminator of knowledge
We recommended that Nature South West should develop in a way that ensures:
- Efficiency – avoid duplicating existing effort or putting additional strain on resources
- Accessibility – represent a range of voices and enable various stakeholders’ access to the market
- Effectiveness – enable action to support the delivery of economically and socially viable environmental outcomes
Natural England and its partners have engaged Eunomia to continue supporting the development of this important new initiative for South West England.
