With approximately 90% of the land in the Principality defined as agricultural land (79% of which is designated as a so-called Less Favoured Area), Wales is a natural target for rewilding. But so emotive is the term that its proponents now don’t even use the word locally, preferring terms such as ‘assisted natural regeneration’.

Those seeking to rewild land in Wales face the same challenges as the farmers themselves. Many proponents of rewilding – and also financial investors – believe it can only be done at scale.

Alastair Driver, Director of Rewilding Britain, is one such person. “Small sites are not viable for rewilding farmland; we focus on large areas – 1,000 or more hectares,” he says. To put that in perspective, the average farm size in Wales is 48ha and only 14% of farms have more than 100ha. To complicate matters further, 12% of the total agricultural land is common land, compared with just 3% in England. Common land is complicated. Centuries-old rights and voting arrangements need to be examined and agreements reached before any changes can be made.

Those who have tried to rewild at scale in Wales have found it tough going. The 2018 Summit to Sea project, for instance, was an ambitious, high-profile, ecosystem-wide project stretching over a 25,000-acre swathe of land from the top of Pumlumon Mountain in mid-Wales to the coast at Cardigan Bay. Within a year, the project had sucked up several million pounds and had to be abandoned after fierce resistance from farmers, foresters and local communities.

Notwithstanding these challenges, proponents of rewilding in Wales believe there is a solution. Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of The Rivers Trust, lives there. He says: “Rewilding at scale will certainly bring great benefits, but restoring natural functions in small pockets of land in a targeted fashion based on evidence and local knowledge can have hugely positive effects without sacrificing great swathes of land.

“Farmers can set aside wet parts of fields for wetlands, for instance, increasing carbon capture, pollution prevention and biodiversity at the same time without losing productive acreage. Rewilding doesn’t have to be on the scale of thousands of acres as many proponents would argue.”

The challenge Lloyd sees across the country is not so much about attracting financial investors, but in getting businesses and others to commit to buying the arising services to provide a return. “The onus needs to be on securing revenues. Buyers need to be properly incentivised to take a long-term approach to mitigating their impact by restoring nature where it can have the greatest benefits.”

Lloyd believes it is also vital that rewilding is done on a consensual basis in which ideally everyone, or at least the majority, needs to be onside, particularly where common land is involved. He points to the Bryn Arw project in mid-Wales, which was the Welsh Stump Up for Trees (Suft) charity’s first project.

Undertaken on common land on a low hill on the eastern edge of the Black Mountains within the Brecon Beacons (Bannau Brycheiniog) National Park, it represented the first significant tree planting on common land in Wales, with 130,000 native broadleaf trees planted within a 15-month period on a 64ha section of deep bracken. The achievement was far from inconsequential. There were 18 commoners registered on the Bryn Arw land, of which four were active commoners. Keith Powell, a seventh generation Black Mountain farmer and the co-founder of the charity, was one of those. Together with Rob Penn, a former barrister and his co-founder, he bought all the commoners onboard.

“There was some teeth sucking and the difficult part was getting consensus – but getting that was really important,” says Penn. With funding from a Welsh government woodland grant, a small grant from the Woodland Trust and through carbon offset sales, the charity was able to cover the costs of planting, as well as ongoing management for the next 12 years.

Projects on the scale of Brwn Arw might not immediately entice large-scale investors, but walls of money moving in on the Principality’s agricultural land face stiff resistance and some uncertainty.

“There have been instances in which financial investors have bought up whole farms to plant blocks of trees – either for direct financial returns or to burnish their ESG credentials,” says Lloyd. “We need these investors, but this money should be applied intelligently and in consultation with communities and experts – land and livelihoods are precious.”

One such financial investor in Wales is the Foresight Group. It owns eight forestry sites in Carmarthenshire, but faces huge local opposition, intense media scrutiny and a petition that has attracted more than 60,000 signatures. The jury is out as to how many of these large-scale projects will work in Wales and how realistic they are to pursue. Difficulties include the huge swathes of common land laced through properties, the uncertainties around government policy, local politics and the strength of the rural lobby.

“There needs to be rural coherence, particularly in Wales where families have often lived and farmed for generations,” says Penn whose charity may end up developing the model for future initiatives in the Principality. As well as undertaking smaller projects from as little as 1ha, Suft is looking to launch another significant project and exploring different financial models for investors “who really understand the natural capital markets”.

Despite the difficulties involved, Penn sees a huge opportunity in common land in Wales, as long as it’s done right. “The carbon market means that there is suddenly money in the uplands again, but planting trees on common land requires consensus between the landowners and the commoners. Both sides need to put aside their short-term interests and be willing to forge consensus. There is enough money to go around, but if either side is too greedy, we won’t progress, which is criminal given the urgency of the problem.”

One specific area Suft is exploring is a large tract of land near the beautiful Black Mountains that was marred by coal spoils. It is a vast, harsh and barren uplands landscape, interspersed with deep, narrow valleys. While the valley villages are well populated, they are largely barren of economic opportunity and sit below unstable, unused land because of the coal spoil tips.

“We are researching how planting can address the stabilisation problem and, with investment and consensus with landowners and councils, believe we can do it,” says Penn. “The biodiversity net gains would be enormous, dramatically improving things environmentally and economically in an area that needs it.”

Biodiversity and sustainability investors seeking returns from Wales need to be prepared to think local. The opportunity in the region may be big and the urgency of addressing climate challenge pressing, but local, societal, considerations are paramount. Trying to operate at scale in a landscape with a challenging topography, fractured by a complex landowner map, while ignoring local interests, is ill advised.

Working with those living off the land and affected by it is a much more compelling proposition – and it’s also sustainable in the fullest sense.