Natural England announced funding for six study projects which would utilize nature restoration for carbon sequestration methodologies and each cover an area of greater than 500 hectares.

Nature-based Intervention:

Natural England has worked with entities across the country to establish pilot sites for the implementation and evaluation of six different types of nature-based solution. Each of the projects has goals for both nature regeneration and carbon sequestration while being adapted to the local contexts. The six pilot projects are the Wild Exmoor Carbon Sequestration Project, the Wansbeck Restoration for Climate Change, the Plymouth’s Natural Grid Nature Based Solutions for Climate Change at the Landscape Scale project, the Derwent Forest Landscape Recovery Project, the Oxfordshire–Buckinghamshire Freshwater Network and the Severn Solutions for Nature’s Recovery. Each of these 6 projects helps to investigate a different ecosystem or challenges related to the implementation of nature-based solutions. One of the core goals of this research is to then discover how diverse landscapes such as nature-rich woodlands, grasslands, wetlands and urban habitats take up and store carbon.

Overview of context and outcomes:

The government has reported that the information from the pilot sites will be used to better inform habitat creation and contribute to tackling climate change across England. This information could be critical to help inform the creation of new carbon codes, similar to the already existing Woodland Carbon Code and the Peatland Code. This project will occur as Natural England also assess the biodiversity and carbon outcomes of previous restoration projects they have conducted.