Nattergal – Pioneering Nature Restoration at Scale

This article was written by Archie Struthers, CEO at Nattergal and Keynote Speaker at the iiE Awards 2025. Image credit – Boothby Wildland by Jonathan Perugia for Nattergal.

Why Nature Matters

Nature is often associated with beauty, tranquillity and well-being, but its importance goes far beyond that. Today, the conversation is shifting towards economic risk. Nature is critical national infrastructure, yet our economic system has consistently failed to account for and value its function. The result is that the cost of neglect is now becoming an economic problem.

Research from the Green Finance Institute shows that the risk to economic growth from nature loss is nearly twice the impact of both COVID and the Global Financial Crisis. Consider the extraordinary measures taken globally to protect economic activity during those crises – and yet the looming threat from nature degradation is even greater. The Institute of Actuaries, known for their conservative forecasts, predicts that over one-fifth of economic growth in the next 25 years will be lost to the impacts of climate change and nature loss.

The challenges are already visible. Food security, carbon storage and air quality are pressing issues, but water stands out as the most widespread concern in the UK. Rainfall now arrives in fewer, heavier bursts, as seen last winter, while summers have been the driest in recent history for two consecutive years. This has pushed the food production system into crisis, leaving many farmers facing severe financial hardship.

Flooding risk is escalating too. One in seven homes is already at risk, and this is expected to rise to one in four by 2050. Our transport network was designed for flooding events expected once every 100 years – now they occur roughly every seven years. In southern England, a reservoir supplying millions of people with drinking water has seen nutrient levels rise after two drought years. If similar conditions persist for two more years, it could become inoperable. The company who manages it believes that even £100m could not fix it.

The Scale of the Challenge

The UK has a legal commitment to conserve and restore 30 per cent of our land and sea by 2030, yet current levels are well below 10 per cent, with no credible plans to close the gap. Globally, the Paulson Institute estimated the funding gap for nature restoration at $700 billion per year just a few years ago. Their latest research puts that figure closer to $1 trillion annually – a near 50 per cent increase. Costs are rising exponentially as extreme weather events become more frequent and natural systems fail.

Nattergal’s Response

Against this backdrop, Nattergal was established to pioneer a practical response. We have raised £40 million of private capital from institutional and family office investors. Our approach is simple yet ambitious: acquire degraded farmland and transform it into thriving nature hotspots, backed by scientific evidence of impact.

Natural capital refers to the stock of natural resources that underpin ecosystem services. By restoring ecosystem function, we enable self-regenerating systems that provide services such as carbon storage, water purification and biodiversity support. These services can then be monetised through emerging natural capital markets.

Nature is our most effective ally in building resilience and supporting climate adaptation. Healthy soils and restored habitats foster biodiversity and enable sustainable food production. They also improve water storage and filtration, reducing flood risk in winter and replenishing aquifers to help during dry periods. Restored ecosystems naturally store large amounts of carbon, and the benefits to human well-being from access to nature are well documented.

Nattergal currently owns three sites: Boothby Wildland near Grantham, Lincolnshire; High Fen Wildland near Methwold, Norfolk; and Harolds Park Wildland next to Epping Forest, Essex. Each site is undergoing transformative interventions to kickstart natural process-led recovery. We have already established significant volumes and value in ecosystem services, combining Biodiversity Net Gain – the world’s first statutory biodiversity market, where we supply around 10 per cent of the UK’s registered BNG – with carbon markets through the UK’s Woodland and Peatland Codes and newer standards such as Wilder Carbon.

Our model is built on evidence and innovation. By owning our sites, we can prove the business case for nature restoration, building confidence in scaling the market. Our values are clear and well-evidenced: Nature First, Act Local and Collaborate. Our interventions are designed to enable and kickstart ecosystem recovery, we are primarily natural process led, believing that nature is best placed to determine the most resilient outcomes.

Proving the Model

Building a business around nature restoration requires both deep ecological expertise and commercial innovation. Our success depends on developing natural capital markets and creating new valuation models. The scientific integrity and co-benefits of our projects have enabled us to set record prices in the UK, demonstrating that nature restoration can deliver measurable economic value.

We are also pioneering blended finance to support land-use systems change. Boothby Wildland is the first of more than 50 Landscape Recovery projects under development with Defra and Natural England to move into implementation. This approach combines public and private investment to accelerate restoration at scale.

Collaboration and Systems Change

Innovation in this space relies on collaboration across all dimensions of the business. We work with leading universities on science and partner with corporates to build offtake markets. Our sites provide bottom-up evidence of land-use change benefits, while we also lead top-down systems change.

Through key initiatives we are founding members of initiatives such as Rebuilding Nature – a cross-industry alliance championing a Strategic Nature Network for the UK – we aim to direct investment to the most critical areas, the Nature Investment Zones therein. Through Flood Action, we are working to develop a £1 billion water credit market designed to pay for natural flood management, and we are co-leading with the National Trust a coalition of major landowners to develop nature-based solutions for corporate needs at landscape scale.

Scaling Up

Collaboration drives investment, and investment scales markets. Nattergal is beginning to manage land beyond our own holdings, partnering with progressive landowners as their nature restoration partner. We are exploring opportunities to develop water markets, expand voluntary biodiversity investment and support green prescribing. Future plans include scaling into adjacent habitats such as marine ecosystems and European landscapes. Watch this space!

In the meantime, we welcome visitors to our wildlands to experience the progress for Nature firsthand.  From individual tours to team away-days with volunteering activities, there are a wide range of options to get out into the wild and support our progress. Welcome to our Wildlands — Nattergal