HIGHLAND Rewilding has announced that it has acquired the funds needed to buy the 3500-acre Tayvallich Estate in Argyll.

The estate joins the project’s two existing rewilding sites, Bunloit in Inverness and Beldorney in Aberdeenshire.

It is unclear what Highland Rewilding plans to do with the estate 

It was revealed in December last year that founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, Dr Jeremy Leggett, a former Greenpeace director, had made an exclusive offer to buy the estate for £10.5m, with an agreement that funds needed to be raised before the end of February.

News of the funds raised also comes as the Highlands Rewilding project team extend its crowdfund and fundraising campaign for a further two months until the end of April.

Dr Jeremy Leggett said: “The team is looking forward to the many aspects of work we will be able to do on Tayvallich. The rich tapestry of habitats onshore and offshore will provide fertile ground for our data acquisition and processing, and natural-capital verification science. The many activities we will be able to pursue with the local community will give us the chance to create an exemplar of community-company synergy and enshrine public integrity principles with ethical private interests.

“While we have tried and failed to attract the first major investments from investment funds, pension funds, and insurance companies, we know the appetite is there with many telling us that the project has made amazing progress, that they know there will be growth in the nature recovery market, and to revisit our conversions in six to twelve months’ time."

He continued: “Fund managers have told us that our mass ownership works well for them, because of the element of social licence it brings. Stated another way, the more that citizen rewilders invest at the £50 to £100 level, the more the financial institutions are likely to invest at the £50 million to £100 million level. This is something we’re committed to doing and when we revisit the approaches we have made this time around, we will be presenting a stronger case than ever before thanks to the success of this campaign. We will also live in hope that the Scottish Government can make the high integrity policy route to rewarding biodiversity uplift clearer by then.”

The Green Finance Institute estimates that nearly £100 billion will be needed in the UK over the next ten years to support nature-recovery targets and stop biodiversity decline by 2030. Scotland’s share of that is some £20 billion.

Highlands Rewilding intends to close the purchase of Tayvallich Estate by the end of March. The details of the investment will be made public in due course.