British Wildlife 33.8 August 2022

Comment: Paying for nature

In response to the government’s recent announcement, Dieter Helm dissects the government’s promise of £500 million per year for nature recovery, and makes the case for a new approach to funding environmental restoration.

The government announced that, in order to halt the general decline in nature and especially the abundance of species by 2030, it is targeting at least £500 million per annum in private finance by 2027 in England, rising to more than £1 billion by 2030, via its new Nature Recovery Fund (Defra 2022). Extra money is welcome, yet even this small sum – in the context of government spending – is less than it seems.

Natural reflections