Environmental policy now prioritizes nature restoration. From policy-makers to private-sector firms and communities, all over the globe are under pressure to remediate damaged ecosystems, restore habitats, restore water quality, reintroduce species, and enhance landscape-level resilience to climate change.
However, targets alone will not restore nature. It demands land, labour, planning, evidence, community trust, monitoring and long-term management, as well as finance.
Without finance, nature restoration objectives are unlikely to materialise as restored rivers, wetlands, woodlands, grasslands, coastal habitats and productive agricultural landscapes.
Public finance has a key role to play in securing this finance. While private finance may be able to help in some cases, particularly if there are identified revenue streams or if investment brings risk mitigation to a business, much of nature’s value is a public good.
Many benefits of restoration are likely to accrue to the general public rather than a specific landholder or investor. In these instances, including clean water, flood risk reduction, healthy soils, natural carbon stores, recovery of wildlife, and the protection of productive landscapes, only public finance will deliver them.
This is why public finance matters.
Nature restoration generates public value
Nature restoration is often viewed as a cost. It can, however, constitute a public investment.
Restored wetlands can reduce flood risk and filter the water through which they are restored. Reconnected rivers can benefit fish and other wildlife, as well as water quality. Healthy soils can help agriculture withstand shocks. Woodlands and coastal habitats can sequester carbon, as well as help protect against the impacts of storms and flooding. Grasslands, hedgerows and field margins can support pollination, natural pest control and other ecosystem services.
These benefits are not purely environmental, but economic and social as well, and so they should be treated as such in public investment decisions.
If governments are willing to spend on roads, health, energy, flood protection and other public services because they support social and economic prosperity, they should be just as willing to spend on restoring the environment for similar reasons.
Nature restoration is not about keeping nature away from humanity, but reducing risk, enhancing resilience and supporting a landscape that is conducive to economic prosperity and community life. This is closely linked to the wider public value of nature.
Finance needs to support recovery over the long term
The mistake that is all too often made in nature policy is to treat restoration like a short-term intervention.
Trees can be planted, invasive species can be removed, peatlands can be rewetted and riverbeds can be restored, but these will only be the first steps towards recovery. Many restoration outcomes need long-term maintenance to be achieved.
A restored wetland may need its water levels managed. A restored woodland may need fencing to protect it from grazing and fire. A restored grassland may need a particular cutting or grazing regime. A restored river may need continuous catchment management and monitoring.
Public funding for nature restoration should, therefore, cover more than initial interventions; it should enable long-term recovery.
Short-term finance is a particular problem. It may pay for activity and visible actions, but not for their ongoing maintenance. It may incentivise land managers to go for the next grant rather than a long-term restoration strategy. It may also make long-term planning and retention of skills more difficult at the local level.
Nature restoration works best when the funding involved is predictable, long-term and linked to specific outcomes.
Paying land managers for environmental outcomes
Significant restoration efforts occur on land overseen by farmers, foresters, Indigenous peoples, local communities, public sector bodies and private landowners. Society will not get habitats restored, soils protected, water quality improved and pressure on species reduced unless funding mechanisms address the costs and risks.
This is especially relevant for agricultural landscapes, where farmers are frequently called on to produce food, deliver nature outcomes and work within tight margins. This is where public programmes have a role in recognising good practices such as wetland restoration, hedgerow management, soil conservation, agroforestry, low-input grassland, buffer strips and pollinator habitats.
It is therefore directly relevant to work on land management decisions. Restoration cannot be disentangled from how land is managed on a day-to-day basis.
Seeing land as an environmental resource refines the role of public funding: not just payment for forgone production, but payment for public goods that would not get rewarded through the market.
Restoration needs to be achievable locally
While national governments may set restoration targets, restoration will happen at a local scale.
Rivers will be restored in catchments; woodlands will be managed in landscapes; coastal areas will be restored in particular communities; urban nature will be created in neighbourhoods; and farmland biodiversity will be shaped in individual fields.
It follows that public funding needs to reach the organisations and people that can make it happen.
Local authorities, catchment partnership bodies, conservation groups, community groups, farmers, fishermen and land managers have a lot of the necessary expertise but not sufficient access to funding or technical support.
Funding programmes should therefore include support for these local delivery bodies in the areas of staffing, planning and mapping, community involvement, technical advice, monitoring and maintenance.
Restoration is not only capital expenditure; it is also about capacity building to sustain nature.
Water restoration needs coherent budgets
A number of the best restoration possibilities are linked to water.
Rivers, wetlands, floodplains, lakes, estuaries and coastal areas provide benefits in terms of biodiversity, water quality, flood management, fisheries and recreation, but are simultaneously under pressure due to multiple drivers including pollution, abstraction, drainage, impoundment, sedimentation, invasives, urbanisation and climate change.
It follows that funding needs to be integrated to restore freshwater and coastal ecosystems.
A river restoration project could be undermined by ongoing pollution upstream. A wetland might not be viable if water management regimes do not change. Coastal restoration may require the engagement of flood defences, fisheries, planning authorities and local communities.
Funding needs to be structured in a whole-systems way, rather than for single projects. Water, agriculture, biodiversity and flood management funding therefore need to be better linked in local planning.
Where budgets remain separate and disconnected, restoration becomes difficult and expensive to deliver.
Public funding should address pressures that cause the damage
Restoration does not just mean fixing what has been damaged. It is about reducing the pressures that caused that damage in the first place.
If we fail to address pollution, over-extraction, land mismanagement or fragmentation, then money spent on restoration is being thrown away. Governments could pay to restore ecosystems while other actions are actively destroying them, for example.
For this reason, public money must be aligned to environmental targets: we cannot pay to restore where we are simultaneously degrading.
We have to review all aspects of public expenditure, from subsidies, tax relief and procurement to infrastructure spending, and ask: where is taxpayers’ money contributing to loss of habitat and biodiversity, pollution and unsustainable use of resources?
This links to work on resource and waste pressures and pollution and chemical pressures. Restoration is not going to be possible if the same ecosystem is damaged in other ways.
At times, the most effective use of public money is not only paying for restoration, but paying for the reduction in other activities that damage nature.
Climate and nature funding must be brought together
Climate and restoration are intertwined.
Restored peatlands, woodlands, wetlands, grasslands, mangroves and soils can all help to store carbon. They also help communities adapt to climate change, for example by reducing flood risk, reducing urban heat, protecting coasts and improving water security.
This is why climate and nature budgets need to be brought together.
If well designed, restoration can help both climate and biodiversity. However, climate action that is not well designed could lead to increased pressure on biodiversity. For example, inappropriate tree planting, poor bioenergy crop planning, or renewables placed in sensitive areas could damage nature despite the climate intentions.
Public expenditure that relates to climate and energy policy therefore needs to be underpinned with biodiversity safeguards.
Climate finance must be invested into actions that are climate positive and that also help to restore nature. We should not look to choose between climate and nature, but instead fund solutions that support both.
Monitoring also needs to be funded
Restoration finance has been predominantly about action. However, action on restoration needs to be accompanied by robust monitoring of the outcomes.
Governments and the wider community need to understand the progress being made.
Monitoring should help answer questions such as:
- Where have species come back to?
- Where is water quality getting better?
- Is carbon increasing?
- Is flood risk being reduced?
- Is the restored habitat coping with drought, fires or invasive species?
- Are communities benefiting?
Without monitoring, restoration becomes a process of activity, rather than results driven.
This means public funding also needs to support baseline surveys, long-term ecological monitoring, information management and independent evaluations, as well as flexibility to adapt where the evidence shows that a change of approach is required.
Monitoring does not need to be over-bureaucratic, but it needs to be credible, systematic and useful for decision-making.
If a programme of restoration cannot demonstrate success, then it will struggle to maintain political and public support.
Funding needs to encourage cooperation
Restoring nature will almost always require cooperation.
For example, restoration of a river catchment will include farmers, towns, industries, conservation groups, water companies and local authorities. Restoration of biodiversity at a landscape scale will mean working with land managers. Restoration at the coast could mean working with fisheries, flood managers, tourism operators and other users.
Public funding can support this collaboration.
Funding mechanisms should incentivise collaboration, coordinated planning and integrated implementation. They should underpin initiatives with landscape reach rather than exclusively supporting isolated, fragmented undertakings. They should support intermediaries who bring parties around the table, as well as help to defuse conflict.
This is one of several rules, funding and delivery issues. Restoration is not just an ecological endeavour. It is a governance challenge.
When it fosters cooperation, restoration can be more strategic and longer-lasting.
Social justice matters
Nature restoration should also benefit people.
Public funding needs to weigh who stands to gain, who foots the bill and who gets to decide. Unjust restrictions on use which do not come with fair support can breed ill will. Ignoring local communities can undermine even the most scientifically solid projects.
This matters all the more where livelihoods hang on the land, forest, fish or water. Indigenous people and local communities possess valuable knowledge for restoration but could be harmed if projects are imposed on them without consent or equitable benefit sharing.
Funding programmes should include provision for participation, employment, ownership and compensation where relevant.
It should not be a top-down exercise. It should be a collective project.
What effective public funding looks like
Key characteristics of good public funding for nature restoration include:
- A duration long enough to allow ecological recovery to take hold;
- A focus on outcomes as well as actions;
- Enabling land managers and local delivery agencies;
- Integration with biodiversity, water, climate and land-use spending;
- Targeting pressure reduction as well as damage remediation;
- Support for monitoring and analysis;
- Incentives for cross-landscape and catchment collaboration;
- Engagement with people;
- An understanding that restoration is about future investment in resilience.
The design and implementation of these funding schemes is anything but straightforward. Restoration outcomes may take years, the natural world can be difficult and each place has its own characteristics.
But the existence of these problems is not a valid excuse to forego public investment. Rather, they are a strong reason to get the funding right.
Nature restoration as a public duty
The task of restoring natural environments cannot simply be done by a sense of shared mission.
While civil society action and private capital have a role to play, public spending is required since restoration has many benefits that are shared among society at large: clean water, lower flood risk, soil that is more fertile, higher biodiversity and landscapes more resilient to climate shocks are all public goods.
This means that nature restoration is a public duty.
The real query is not whether governments can afford restoration; it is whether they can afford the longer-term cost of not restoring nature.
Restoring environments should be considered a part of economic resilience, public health, climate adaptation, securing water supplies and rural development. It should be incorporated into spending plans, not just tacked on later with the funds left over.
Habitats and species repair should be about building the natural capital future generations will rely on, not simply fixing past wrongs.
Public spending can make this happen, but only if it is predictable, planned and linked to performance.
