An area almost twice the size of London could be returned to nature over the next two decades under plans to be set out by ministers.
The proposals will be detailed later today as part of an overhaul of England’s agricultural subsidies after Brexit.
Applications will open for the first 15 “landscape recovery” projects – the most ambitious tranche of the government’s plans to pay farmers and landowners for environmental work – as part of the changes announced by environment secretary George Eustice.
These initial projects will aim to restore 10,000ha of wildlife habitat and save carbon emissions equivalent to that of 25,000 cars, while improving the habitat of about half of England’s most threatened species, including the water vole, sand lizard and Eurasian curlew.
The landscape recovery scheme will pay farmers for “radical” changes to land use and habitats, such as setting up nature reserves, restoring flood plains, and creating large-scale woodlands or wetlands.
The new subsidy programmes will aim to restore 300,000ha of wildlife habitat by 2042, an area almost twice the size of the capital.
