‘Britain’s Yellowstone’: restoration project aims to take the greed out of land acquisition — SkimNews
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- Restore purchased the 7,500-acre Emblehope Moor in Northumberland for £8.5m, partly funded by a £4.5m Triodos Bank loan, and is still raising £4m; founder Benedict Macdonald said investors get a 2x return before the site is transferred to community or charitable ownership.
- Emblehope Moor, previously managed for biodiversity by the Royal Kennel Club, already hosts merlin, prospecting golden eagles, red squirrels, and pine martens, with trout and salmon in its streams.
- Restoration work begins with rewetting desiccated peat moorland — modelling suggests an extra 100,000 cubic metres of water storage, equivalent to 40 Olympic swimming pools — and removing non-native sitka spruce plantations that raise goshawk predation.
- Exmoor ponies will be introduced urgently to graze down dry grassy "thatch" that poses a fire risk and makes the terrain impassable for curlew chicks to find food.
- Lynx reintroduction is off the table at Emblehope, with Macdonald wary of endorsing a move opposed by many local sheep farmers, despite a survey finding 72% local support.
- Ben Goldsmith has dubbed the surrounding Northumberland estates "Britain's Yellowstone," while the nearby Rothbury estate is being acquired by the Wildlife Trusts via a near-target £30m fundraising appeal.
- Restore will retain the estate's farmer and gamekeeper and expects most income to come from natural capital payments, including carbon credits for rewetted blanket bog and corporate-funded "30x30 Restore units."
Why it matters: Restore's model decouples rewilding from permanent private ownership: investors get 2x returns before the 7,500-acre Emblehope Moor is transferred to community or charity. Founder Benedict Macdonald explicitly wants this to "become the national model for the uplands," making the £4m still being raised a test case for whether conservation finance can deliver biodiversity without minting new "forever lairds."
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