Priority Initiatives

Enabling nature recovery

Wiltshire faces a defining challenge: restoring nature while sustaining resilient food production and thriving farm businesses.

Meeting this moment requires more than ambition; it demands the right expertise and systems in place on the ground.  Efforts to enable nature recovery are being held back by fragmented systems and limited support in the field. Regulators often operate in silos, creating layers of bureaucracy that hold back action at a time when urgency is needed most. At the same time, there is a growing shortage of trusted advisors who can help farmers, as stewards of the land, transition to nature-friendly practices, leaving many without the guidance they need to adapt.  Compounding this, nature markets and accessible financing remain underdeveloped, making it difficult to invest in more sustainable approaches. Without a well-supported network, better-aligned systems, and a clear approach to earned autonomy, the ambition behind policies and funding schemes risks failing to transform into meaningful progress in nature recovery.

That’s why WSLNP has set out six priority initiatives designed to address these challenges head-on. These are structured in two parts: a set of core enablers that remove barriers and strengthen capability across the sector, and a set of landscape priorities that build on this foundation to drive action on the ground.

Together, these priorities equip land managers, organisations and communities with the skills, support, and systems needed to accelerate progress towards meaningful, landscape-scale change.

Restoring nature at scale

Our landscape-scale initiatives translate ambition into coordinated action on the ground, targeting the places where nature needs the most support, connecting habitats across catchments and ecological corridors. By aligning with the UK’s 30 by 30 ambitions, these priorities focus on restoring, enhancing, and linking landscapes in ways that deliver lasting benefits for biodiversity, climate resilience, and communities.

Effective landscape recovery requires more than isolated projects. It calls for a whole-area perspective bringing together land managers, organisations, and communities to plan and act collectively. Through connected thinking and shared direction, these initiatives ensure that individual actions contribute to a bigger, more coherent picture, unlocking impact at a scale that truly supports nature’s recovery.