Restore, a nature restoration company, has bought the 7,500-acre Emblehope Moor in a remote part of Northumberland for £8.5m, creating the largest contiguous rewilding site under single ownership in England. The scheme is notable for its financial model: investors will receive returns and a £4.5m Triodos Bank loan will be repaid, after which the land will be transferred to community or charitable ownership rather than remaining in private hands, an approach founder Benedict Macdonald hopes could become a template for upland conservation elsewhere in Britain.

The 20-year project, which still needs to raise £4m, aims to restore golden eagles, curlews, black grouse and beavers to land previously used for grouse shooting, sheep farming and dog training. Early priorities include rewetting desiccated peat moorland by blocking hidden land drains, which could store an extra 100,000 cubic metres of water, and removing non-native sitka spruce, with beavers eventually introduced to help manage water levels. Emblehope sits within a wider cluster of rewilding estates in Northumberland, including the Wildlife Trusts' £30m bid for the nearby Rothbury estate, prompting comparisons to Yellowstone from environmentalist Ben Goldsmith.