The Jeremy Leggett Interview

Jeremy Leggett, founder and CEO of Highlands Rewilding, talks on the future of biodiversity uplift markets, how to make nature recovery profitable and scalable.

Does capitalism have a survival reflex?
How can we tackle the nature, climate and rural housing emergencies together?
How can Highlands Rewilding be a part of the solution?

This wide-ranging interview covers the challenges and opportunities at present within the nature recovery space and for Highlands Rewilding, the Nature and Community In Perpetuity (NCIP) model, crowdfunding for rewilding, rural repopulation, and his own journey.

The interviewer's questions, in brief, below:

01:16 What are the challenges and opportunities that you in scaling nature recovery face, right now?

04:14 Does capitalism have a survival reflex?

05:59 What is in the way of board directors of large corporations between them saying “let’s do something”? Why are companies hesitating to act on the biodiversity crisis?

08:13 You’re 70 years old, the pressure must be quite extreme?

09:21 You told me that the foundations are not engaging?

11:47 It’s an extraordinary situation that a community that’s been there for hundreds of years is now on the very edge of its existence. How is scaling rewilding, combatting rural depopulation, and saving the communities in which nature recovery is going to take place?

12:58 You have also invested in a company which builds affordable net zero timber homes?

15:47 It doesn’t seem immediately obvious that having more people living in the landscape can go together with nature recovery.

16:44 Given the history in Scotland and people being moved from the land, it occurs to me that you are in the reverse, that you are actually repopulating, reconstructing ruins on Highlands Rewilding land. That's quite a remarkable ambition.

18:04 What is the Nature and Community in Prosperity (NCIP) model, as we have seen set up with the sale of Barrahormid to a family trust?

20:59 There was this very successful crowdfund, which showed there were lots of people without lots of money, who are interested in investing small amounts, large amounts, in Highlands Rewilding.

22:28 You had this very interesting trajectory: geology all the way through to here, Head of Science Greenpeace UK, science, Solar Century, and not just as an entrepreneur but as an environmentalist. And I want to understand where this has come from. Why are you this passionate about the environment, about making these changes?

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