A documentary specializing in the south-west of England reveals how we are able to restore nature at scale, providing pioneering, nature-based options throughout our cities, land and seas
Filmmaker Mairead Cahill is standing in a glade within the historic rainforest on the Leighon property in Dartmoor nationwide park. As she breathes within the cool air, listens to the birdsong and trains her microphone on a babbling brook, a broad smile spreads throughout her face. We’re witnessing the therapeutic energy of nature in motion, captured by Cahill in her inspiring documentary, Sea, Land and Metropolis, which is launched on 17 October.
Because the founding father of multimedia enterprise Wonderoom, Cahill is aware of from expertise the worth of nature. She spent a few years working abroad and, on her return to the UK, was experiencing burnout: “It was nature that helped me get by it,” she says. She was impressed by the therapeutic energy of the pure world, but additionally conscious that the UK is among the most nature-depleted nations on the earth, having misplaced over half of its biodiversity within the final 50 years. So Cahill determined she needed to do one thing to guard the remaining pure panorama.
She knew there have been nature-based options that might assist to result in local weather resilience and help biodiversity whereas additionally doing social and financial good. And he or she knew that she, along with her storytelling abilities, might encourage individuals and companies to have interaction with these options.
So, supported by companions that included moral financial institution, Triodos, and the crown property, she set off on an journey, taking her digital camera and the viewer along with her. She trekked, clambered, sailed, waded and foraged her manner throughout the south-west of England, to discover the individuals and initiatives driving change on sea, on land and within the metropolis.
Cahill’s journey takes in an array of nature-based options, from the restored beaver wetlands of the River Avon to the pioneering pure capital mannequin of the Leighon property with its temperate rainforests. From the underwater sea grass meadows of the Solent, which are actually teeming with wildlife as soon as once more, to its restored oyster beds and saltmarshes supporting migratory birds on what was a landfill web site. She went to Studland Bay in Dorset to see the eco-moorings that float on the floor of the water rather than anchors, which scrape throughout the seabed and harm delicate marine habitats. And eventually to Bristol, the place she filmed floating ecosystems – inexperienced islands made up of coconut fibre, recycled plastic pipesteaming and native vegetation – that are actually dwelling to wildlife.
In Devon, she visits the Leighon property and talks to its custodians, the pioneering conservation enterprise Oxygen Conservation. The organisation was set as much as “ship constructive environmental and social impression, with revenue the consequence, not the aim”, explains Elly Steers, Oxygen’s head of storytelling. Since its basis in 2021, Oxygen Conservation has acquired 11 websites throughout the UK (totalling 30,000 acres), from Cornwall as much as the Highlands of Scotland, with a view to defending and restoring the land. At Leighon, the long-term mission for the entire area, says Steers, is to have “panorama connectivity …”, up with different pockets of this stunning and uncommon habitat. Extra broadly, the corporate’s mission is to scale conservation.
What’s actually going to maneuver the dial is when enterprise and finance will get behind nature in a a lot larger manner
Strolling by the protected rainforest of Leighon property with Oxygen Conservation founder Wealthy Stockdale and the Thousand Yr Belief’s Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, Cahill discusses the idea of the pure capital financial system and what it means for our future. Stockdale places it merely: “We have to put an actual worth on nature and make the safety and restoration of it extra economically viable than the harm of it.”
The worth of Oxygen Conservation’s estates lies in carbon credit, England’s biodiversity internet acquire legislation, renewables, property, ecotourism and regenerative agriculture. “We have to display that carbon and nature is a bankable proposition,” says Stockdale. “An actual pivotal second was the deal we put in place with Triodos Financial institution, which is the biggest debt funding package deal primarily based on pure capital that we’re conscious of anyplace on the planet.” The landmark mortgage in 2023 of £20.55m (interest-only for the primary 5 years) has allowed Oxygen Conservation to scale.
Up shut with the industrious beavers on the Avon, it’s simpler to know what nature-based options can actually appear like. In Cahill’s firm, we get proper as much as the riverbanks, to see how beavers assist form ecosystems, help biodiversity and use their well-known dam-building abilities to guard us from the rising challenges of flooding and drought. “From a civil engineering perspective, if we needed to do what beavers do for us in our landscapes, it might value us substantial cash,” marvels Cahill. “Flood administration on this nation prices us over £2bn a yr and beavers are doing that for us free of charge.”
Flood administration on this nation prices us over £2bn a yr and beavers are doing it free of charge
“The factor that’s actually going to maneuver the dial on this for us is when enterprise and finance will get behind nature in a a lot larger manner,” concludes Cahill within the movie. She hopes that not solely will members of most of the people see the documentary, however enterprise homeowners too, and that it’s going to encourage them to think about supporting nature-based options in their very own areas. “We’ve this unimaginable second to actually basically reconnect to nature at a person, financial and cultural stage, as a result of our well being and nature’s well being are fully interdependent.”
That look we see on Cahill’s face within the rainforest: it’s not simply happiness however optimism. “Let’s make this a motion,” she enthuses.
Images: Josh Craddock
