The South Downs National Park stretches across 1,648 sq. km of rolling chalk grassland and lowland heath in the South East of England, receiving nearly 40 million visitors a year.
The South Downs National Park has set an ambitious target for 33% of its area to be managed for nature by 2030 through its ReNature initiative.
This includes the planting of hundreds of thousands of new trees, creating connected corridors of biodiverse woodland across the landscape. With ambitious targets in place, funding at a new scale is clearly needed.
The South Downs National Park team wanted to find a way to accelerate and deliver a landscape-scale woodland planting initiative in line with their local vision, that is suitable for private finance.
This meant creating a model that would not only deliver landscape changes that meet the highest ecological standards, but also one that can offer a competitive, verified and secure livelihood opportunity for national park land managers and farmers. Retaining existing landownership is central to the Revere approach.
Working with the Revere team is a way to bring this nature ambition closer to reality. After several years of collaboration between the South Downs, Revere and local farmers and land managers, the first phase of the South Downs Woodland Project is now ready for ethically aligned investment.
Key Statistics
- Location: South Downs National Park, England, UK
- Size: 1,000+ hectares (Phase One)
- Status: Investment ready
- Credit type: Woodland Carbon Credits
- Standard: UK Woodland Carbon Code
- Carbon removal: 192,000+ tonnes of CO₂
Project Approach
The South Downs National Park Woodland Project will enhance the landscape by gradually creating new broadleaf woodland habitat at scale on marginal agricultural land, whilst providing a new income stream for local landowners, improving soil health and mitigating flood and drought risks in the face of growing extreme weather conditions.
Designed by Revere together with the South Downs National Park Authority and local farmers and landowners, the project offers farmers the opportunity to convert lower grade agricultural land into woodland and generate an additional source of income, whilst maintaining productive farming practices.
Phase One covers 1,000 hectares of new woodland and will connect existing isolated blocks, creating thriving habitat corridors and supporting iconic local flora and fauna such as the green woodpecker and barbastelle bat. Woodland plans adhere to the ‘right tree, right place’ principle, and prioritise native locally suitable tree species such as oak, beech, small leaved lime, wild cherry, yew and alder.
To get to investable scale, the project brings together multiple local farmers and land managers from across the National Park, each of whom offers areas of land for new woodland creation.
Participating land managers/farmers receive an income per hectare, with no need for change of land ownership or stewardship. The project will generate high-integrity carbon credits verified by the UK Woodland Carbon Code.
Monitoring and evaluation are built into the projects and includes assessments of the co-benefits beyond carbon sequestration.