Key Takeaways:
- The UK is leading a new era of large-scale rewilding and nature recovery.
- In the current day, many projects link to carbon credit markets to facilitate nature recovery on a major scale.
- Over 70% of UK land has been modified by human activity such as agriculture, forestry, or development, leaving us in a biodiversity crisis with significant habitat loss.
Across the UK, habitat restoration projects are reviving landscapes that support fish and wildlife, protect endangered species, and improve water quality.
From remote peatlands to projects near the city, these efforts are restoring nature’s balance while creating new opportunities for recreation and sustainable living.
Our latest article delves into some of the UK’s most successful projects, from the RSPB’s 75-year-old Minsmere Reserve in Suffolk to the Manx Temperate Rainforest Project on the Isle of Man.
Discover a range of projects across varying initiatives, each playing a part in crucially restoring our biodiversity levels and restoring our carbon sinks to lower overall emissions.
What is a Habitat Restoration Project?
Habitat restoration projects involve putting time, funding and investment into repairing a nature site that has been degraded by urbanisation.
This is broad – encompassing anything from offshore oil rig reef restorations to post-volcanic soil recolonisation.
Over 70% of UK land has been modified by human activity such as agriculture, forestry, or development, leaving us in a biodiversity crisis with significant habitat loss.
As a result, masses of restoration projects are underway, focusing mostly on wetland, woodland, grassland, river, and coastal restoration.
In the current day, many projects link to carbon credit markets to facilitate nature recovery on a major scale. Organisations can connect with vital nature restoration projects to invest and offset their emissions. Gaia makes this possible with our BNG & Carbon Marketplace, with over £1.2 billion worth of natural assets listed.
Great North Bog
Formed in 2021, the Great North Bog is a peatland-restoration project that spans around upland northern England, including the Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland, and the Lake District.
It’s led by 6 different regional peat-restoration partnerships with the aim of restoring 7,000 km² of peatland by 2040. Peatlands have been degraded by centuries of farming, burning, grouse shooting, and peat extraction – leaving around 80% of UK peatland in poor condition.
Restoration work is underway across more than 1,000 km², with progress accelerating through new carbon funding.
Website: https://greatnorthbog.org.uk/
Great Fen
The Great Fen is a large-scale project in Cambridgeshire restoring 3,700 hectares of fenlands and peats, both types of wetlands.
Peat is partially decomposed plant matter, building up in waterlogged conditions that lack oxygen (immense carbon sink), and fens are low-lying wetlands with fertile ground or surface water.
Ran by Wildlife Trust BCN, it has 1,200 hectares restored so far. Its successfully protected carbon sinks are now managed for conservation, cutting emissions and strengthening resilience to future floods from climate change.
The project also supports verified carbon credit purchases through the Peatland Code, attracting investment to fund long-term restoration.
Website: https://www.greatfen.org.uk/
Knepp Wildland
Once Knepp Estate, a former intensive dairy and arable farm, the owners have converted it into one of England’s most successful restoration sites. The 1,400 hectares were largely depleted and drained, with ecosystems collapsed and vulnerable.
Today, it boasts meadows, wetlands, scrub, wood pastures – packed with cattle, Exmoor ponies, pigs, and deer. In between, it hosts rarer species from white storks and peregrine falcons to purple emperor butterflies.
They plan to create an eco-village of 240 homes within the lands, featuring integrated biodiversity, low-carbon design, and low-impact living.
This would be the very first of its kind – living within a rewilded ecosystem, immersed in nature with flourishing communal gardens and a strong eco-community.
Website: https://knepp.co.uk/
Howgill Fells
In the upland hills of northern England, Howgill Fells are a beautiful landscape of hills between the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.
Thousands of years ago, the fells were more biodiverse, wetter, and supported rare species. From the 18th and 19th centuries, overgrazing, deforestation, drainage and farming degraded upland soils.
Today, multiple strong projects are underway: the Ghost Woodlands rewilding (reducing grazing, planting trees), the Howgill Beck River Restoration Project (RSPB), and Natural England’s peat and blanket bog restoration.
Website: https://knepp.co.uk/
Steart Marshes
In 2014, a low-lying farmland on the Steart Peninsula was transformed into a thriving, biodiverse saltmarsh, mudflat wetland habitat.
This was achieved by the EA and WWT (Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust) by breaching an old sea wall. Built centuries ago for flood protection, its destruction flooded the 400 hectares of land.
Because of this, the land today is an extraordinary wildlife reserve with thousands of wading birds, wildfowl, otters, water voles – storing immense amounts of carbon as one of the UK’s most successful coastal rewildings.
Steart is now a flagship example of blue carbon restoration and informing future UK saltmarsh carbon credit schemes.
Website: https://www.wwt.org.uk/wetland-centres/steart-marshes
Severn Estuary Saltmarsh Reserve
Encompassing the Steart Marshes stretches the immense Severn Estuary – one of the UK’s biggest tidal ranges, with various restoration projects within.
In between south-west England and south Wales, it’s a network of protected coastal saltmarshes both natural and restored. The biodiverse, vast wetlands were drained for farming and pasture in the 18th-20th centuries, leaving soils degraded and nutrients depleted.
Current projects include Awre Peninsula, Rhymney Great Wharf, Newport Wetlands and more. Through the restoration, it’s regained intertidal habitats, flood protection, blue carbon and a diversity of wildlife.
Several sites within the estuary, including Awre Peninsula, are part of the UK’s growing blue carbon credit pilots.
Website: https://www.portburywharfnaturereserve.co.uk/severn-estuary/
Manx Temperate Rainforest Project
Run by the Manx Wildlife Trust, the Manx Temperate Rainforest Project only just launched in May 2025, up in the Glen Auldyn Valley, north of the Isle of Man.
Temperate rainforests are cool, wet rainforests with constant humidity and rainfall that amass huge amounts of carbon.
The long-term restoration programme will run until 2030, with a full ecosystem recovery planned across future decades giving time for slow ecological processes.
Website: https://www.mwt.im/news/major-rainforest-restoration-project-launches-isle-man
River Tamar Restoration Project
Running between Devon and Cornwall, the River Tamar and its surrounding valley were rich in woodland wildlife, wetlands and fish.
After centuries of mining, draining and farming, waters were polluted. The River Tamar Restoration Project was kickstarted in 2012 by a group of leading governmental and conservation organisations.
Since 2012, the project has reconnected key sections of the river, reduced runoff, replanted riverbanks and even reintroduced beavers! The project will continue well beyond 2030 with ongoing efforts.
Some areas of the Tamar catchment are being assessed for carbon sequestration potential, with future credit generation under review.
Website: https://tamar.theatlantic.org/
South Downs Chalk Grassland Project
In the eastern South Downs (Sussex), this project (Changing Chalk) is connecting 1,000 hectares of chalk grassland habitats containing up to 40 plants per metre.
Integral for UK biodiversity, these habitats have been disconnected by agricultural expansion, scrub encroachment, and urban growth – stopping pollinator movement in its tracks.
Many pollinators can only travel a few hundred metres before needing food. By creating ecological corridors (i.e. flower trails) or stepping stone habitats (wildflower patches or meadows), the refuelling stops keep them thriving.
Website: https://www.southdowns.gov.uk/wildlife-habitats/habitats/chalk-grassland/
RSPB Minsmere Reserve Restoration
Minsmere stands out as one of the UK’s most iconic, esteemed and long-standing conservation showcases.
The site was a once mediaeval settlement (1100-1300s), then abandoned (1300s), then drained for agriculture for a few centuries (1600s-1900s).
Things changed when the RSPB took over in 1947. By then, the landscape consisted of depleted, damaged, and drying marshes. It had just been used for WW2 coastal defences, devastating soils even further with bunkers and heavy machinery.
With the work of RSPB, the land has been transformed with re-flooding, habitat reconnecting, scrub clearing, and more – harbouring the return of over 6,000 diverse species from rare birds to invertebrates.
Website: https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/minsmere
More Information
https://marketplace.gaiacompany.io/hub/marketplace/carbon
https://www.iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.org/about-peatlands/peatland-damage
FAQs
What is a habitat restoration project?
Habitat restoration projects involve putting time, funding and investment into repairing a nature site that has been degraded by urbanisation.
Why does the UK need so many restoration projects?
Over 70% of UK land has been modified by human activity such as agriculture, forestry, or development, leaving us in a biodiversity crisis with significant habitat loss.
Which types of habitats are being restored in the UK?
Masses of restoration projects are underway, focusing mostly on wetland, woodland, grassland, river, and coastal restoration.
How are restoration projects funded today?
In the current day, many projects link to carbon credit markets to facilitate nature recovery on a major scale.