Landscape Recovery: first round now open for applications

Landscape Recovery have launched the first round of Landscape Recovery pilot projects, by publishing the guidance for the scheme and releasing our Invitation to Apply on the eSourcing Portal, where you can find more detailed guidance documents. We would encourage you to have a read of these documents when you have a moment, as it will help you understand if the scheme is right for you and the next steps you can now take.

The Landscape Recovery scheme is the third of our new environmental land management schemes, alongside the Sustainable Farming Incentive and Local Nature Recovery.

Landscape Recovery is a hugely exciting opportunity for farmers and land managers who want to focus on the most radical and large-scale approach to producing environmental and climate goods on their land - we are excited to receive your proposals over the coming months.

Applications for this round of funding are open from 1st February 2022 and will close on 24th May 2022. 

The first round of Landscape Recovery projects will focus on:

• recovering and restoring England’s threatened native species – projects under this theme will be administered by Natural England
• restoring England’s streams and rivers: improving water quality, biodiversity and adapting to climate change – projects under this theme will be administered by the Environment Agency

Projects must cover 500 to 5,000 ha of broadly connected land and will be open to any individuals or groups who want to come together to deliver these projects. As part of submitting a bid, applicants will need to confirm that tenants and those with rights of common within the Landscape Recovery area have been engaged prior to application and are supportive of the project.

We will run a competitive process to select the most ambitious and impactful projects. This process will assess applications against selection criteria focused on the project’s potential impact, feasibility and costs, and we will then confirm the chosen round one pilot projects in the summer. We intend to launch a second round of pilot projects next year and will confirm the proposed theme(s) for that round in the next six months.

If Landscape Recovery isn’t right for you, don’t worry – you might well be eligible for the Sustainable Farming Incentive or Local Nature Recovery.

If you have any questions about Landscape Recovery or your application, you can submit them on the eSourcing Portal (bravo). The questions and answers will then be published for everyone to see to ensure an open and fair competition.

We are also holding a number of public webinars where officials will be on hand to answer any of your questions. We have one scheduled for Tuesday 1 March and will be putting other dates in shortly.