The second round of the Landscape Recovery scheme will see the introduction of a food production criterion for the first time.
Announcing the change today (Thursday, May 18), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it will be used to ensure projects take food production into consideration to avoid any negative impacts on this where possible.
The Landscape Recovery scheme sees farmers and landowners receive funding from a share of £15 million to create new habitats for wildlife, help protected sites and boost net zero efforts.
The second round of the scheme will now support up to 25 projects, compared to the first round’s 22, and will be administered by Natural England and the Environment Agency – lead delivery partners for the scheme.
It will focus on projects of at least 500ha which could include landscape-scale projects creating and enhancing woodland including temperate rainforest, peatland, nature reserves and protected sites.
Defra Secretary Thérèse Coffey said the second round of the scheme will “help more farmers and land managers take collective action through involvement in bespoke projects that will make a real difference in reaching net zero and supporting valuable habitats, while continuing to support sustainable food production”.
Chair of Natural England, Dr. Tony Juniper, said: “Agriculture has a huge role to play in nature recovery, ensuring that a thriving natural world is at the heart of sustainable food production.
“Landscape Recovery encourages farmers and land managers to transform nature at a landscape scale and Natural England will use its advice and relationships to support them every step of the way.”
Juniper said he hopes that the scheme will see farmers and land managers join forces to make progress towards the statutory nature targets and providing the food and and public goods that the UK depends on.
A ‘key opportunity’
Chair of the Environment Agency, Alan Lovell, said the second round of the Landscape Recovery scheme presents a “key opportunity” for farmers and land managers who want to focus more on ambitious land-use change and habitat restoration.
Lovell said the round one projects of the scheme, launched in September of 2022, are “already showing great promise”.
“This second round of Landscape Recovery will take us further down the track toward becoming a nation that is resilient to climate change and rich in ecological diversity,” he said.
Defra said the second round of the scheme aims to build on the success of the first round, which was “oversubscribed with high quality applications”.
The 22 projects selected for the first round, the department said, focus on recovering and restoring England’s threatened native species and restoring England’s streams and rivers by improving water quality, enhancing biodiversity and adapting to climate change.
