The economic opportunity of rewilding

4.2 Case study

In some cases, the willingness of the users to pay can even drive a positive change in how the land is being managed.

Mountain biking in Wales

The Bike Park Wales mountain biking company was leasing land from a commercial forestry company in order to run mountain biking trails and activities in the woods.

The forestry here included growing non-native species in straight lines, and clear-felling large areas in one go, leading to areas of the bike park being completely closed during felling operations and the interests of the mountain bikers was becoming increasingly incompatible with the commercial forestry. The monoculture plantations were also highly susceptible to disease and fires, causing trails to be closed while emergencies were dealt with.

Bike Park Wales identified that rewilding would be a solution to these environmental issues and would also provide a better biking environment for their customers. They decided to re-negotiate their tenancy agreement to include rewilding as well as biking. This would mean restructuring the commercial plantation, allowing natural regeneration of other forest species and letting deadwood remain in the forest – reducing human management of the area.

Nature recovery meant a loss in the forestry company’s expected income from the timber they would usually fell and sell. This financial loss had to be compensated for in the new tenancy agreement.

The eventual contract will see Bike Park Wales pay a base rent plus an agreed percentage of ticket sales (from mountain bikers accessing the trails). The total amount is designed to cover 33 years’ worth of forestry income plus the costs of the nature-restoration efforts – a multimillion-pound lease.

Bike Park Wales benefit from the security that the trails won’t be closed for forestry operations and they can also offer their customers a more unique biking opportunity in a more beautiful place. This helps build the business, their reputation, and also gives nature new space to recover.

In summary

From a financial perspective, rewilding organisations can be considered developers or custodians of ecosystems services, as they maintain or increase the services provided by the ecosystem.

In this example users are paying for a type of cultural ecosystem service, ‘recreation and ecotourism’.

Payments for ecosystem services can therefore become a source of sustainable income for rewilding, if they are set up and governed in a transparent way.