A new major nature finance project has been announced by Hometree, an Irish nature restoration charity based in the west of Ireland.

The project aims to fund large-scale nature restoration to target unresolved challenges in tackling biodiversity loss in Ireland.

The initiative is supported by the Lifes2Good Foundation and is part of Hometree's wider aim to restore 57,000 acres of native woodland and habitat by 2035, while positioning Ireland at the forefront of developing scalable, farm-based nature finance that is fair and replicable.

In Ireland, viable funding models that address the need to “pay for nature” while also supporting farmers are underdeveloped, Hometree has said.

The main objective of Hometree’s project is to design practical approaches to make restoring nature more realistic and to create a sustainable income stream for farmers and landowners, while keeping in mind the realities of farming life.

Expertise

The project brings together expertise from ecology, agriculture, business and finance to develop a programme that can unlock multiple funding streams and create a potential income for landowners through nature restoration.

To date, the nature finance project has identified key barriers to nature restoration - for example, how environmental outcomes are measured and verified and the challenge of scaling projects across thousands of individual landowners.

Next phase

In the next phase of the project, workable solutions will be developed, tested and scaled across different sites and communities.

The project aims to attract private and philanthropic capital, while delivering credible ecological outcomes in partnership with landowners and local communities.

Hometree has appointed a finance team and is now engaging with potential partners and funders to bring the project to life, with the first pilot targeted for 2027.

“There is currently no clear, workable mechanism to channel private funding to farmers for nature,” said nature finance project lead at Hometree Liam Hennessy.

“This project is about bridging that gap, developing a model that works for people, delivers real environmental outcomes and can operate at scale.

“If successful, it could create a new income stream for landowners, while helping to reverse nature loss across the country,” he said.

“For nature restoration to happen at the scale required, it has to work for farmers. That means creating viable, long-term income streams,” Hometree CEO Matt Smith stated.

“What we’re trying to do here is move beyond theory and develop models that can attract real investment into the Irish landscape, models that are practical, credible and built to scale.

“If we get this right, it has the potential to reshape how nature restoration is funded, not just in Ireland, but in similar farming systems internationally,” he said.