A documentary focusing on the south-west of England shows how we can restore nature at scale, offering pioneering, nature-based solutions across our cities, land and seas
Filmmaker Mairead Cahill is standing in a glade in the ancient rainforest on the Leighon estate in Dartmoor national park. As she breathes in the cool air, listens to the birdsong and trains her microphone on a babbling brook, a broad smile spreads across her face. We’re witnessing the healing power of nature in action, captured by Cahill in her inspiring documentary, Sea, Land and City, which is released on 17 October.
As the founder of multimedia business Wonderoom, Cahill knows from experience the value of nature. She spent many years working overseas and, on her return to the UK, was experiencing burnout: “It was nature that helped me get through it,” she says. She was inspired by the healing power of the natural world, but also aware that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, having lost over half of its biodiversity in the last 50 years. So Cahill decided she wanted to do something to protect the remaining natural landscape.
She knew there were nature-based solutions that could help to bring about climate resilience and support biodiversity while also doing social and economic good. And she knew that she, with her storytelling skills, could inspire people and businesses to engage with these solutions.
So, supported by partners that included ethical bank, Triodos, and the crown estate, she set off on an adventure, taking her camera and the viewer with her. She trekked, clambered, sailed, waded and foraged her way across the south-west of England, to explore the people and projects driving change on sea, on land and in the city.
Cahill’s journey takes in an array of nature-based solutions, from the restored beaver wetlands of the River Avon to the pioneering natural capital model of the Leighon estate with its temperate rainforests. From the underwater sea grass meadows of the Solent, which are now teeming with wildlife once again, to its restored oyster beds and saltmarshes supporting migratory birds on what was a landfill site. She went to Studland Bay in Dorset to see the eco-moorings that float on the surface of the water in place of anchors, which scrape across the seabed and damage delicate marine habitats. And finally to Bristol, where she filmed floating ecosystems – green islands made up of coconut fibre, recycled plastic pipesteaming and native plants – that are now home to wildlife.
In Devon, she visits the Leighon estate and talks to its custodians, the pioneering conservation business Oxygen Conservation. The organisation was set up to “deliver positive environmental and social impact, with profit the result, not the purpose”, explains Elly Steers, Oxygen’s head of storytelling. Since its foundation in 2021, Oxygen Conservation has acquired 11 sites across the UK (totalling 30,000 acres), from Cornwall up to the Highlands of Scotland, with a view to protecting and restoring the land. At Leighon, the long-term mission for the whole region, says Steers, is to have “landscape connectivity …”, up with other pockets of this beautiful and rare habitat. More broadly, the company’s mission is to scale conservation.
What’s really going to move the dial is when business and finance gets behind nature in a much bigger way
Walking through the protected rainforest of Leighon estate with Oxygen Conservation founder Rich Stockdale and the Thousand Year Trust’s Merlin Hanbury-Tenison, Cahill discusses the concept of the natural capital economy and what it means for our future. Stockdale puts it simply: “We need to put a real value on nature and make the protection and restoration of it more economically viable than the damage of it.”
The value of Oxygen Conservation’s estates lies in carbon credits, England’s biodiversity net gain law, renewables, property, ecotourism and regenerative agriculture. “We need to demonstrate that carbon and nature is a bankable proposition,” says Stockdale. “A real pivotal moment was the deal we put in place with Triodos Bank, which is the largest debt funding package based on natural capital that we’re aware of anywhere on the planet.” The landmark loan in 2023 of £20.55m (interest-only for the first five years) has allowed Oxygen Conservation to scale.
Up close with the industrious beavers on the Avon, it’s easier to grasp what nature-based solutions can really look like. In Cahill’s company, we get right up to the riverbanks, to see how beavers help shape ecosystems, support biodiversity and use their famous dam-building skills to protect us from the growing challenges of flooding and drought. “From a civil engineering perspective, if we had to do what beavers do for us in our landscapes, it would cost us substantial money,” marvels Cahill. “Flood management in this country costs us over £2bn a year and beavers are doing that for us for free.”
Flood management in this country costs us over £2bn a year and beavers are doing it for free
“The thing that’s really going to move the dial on this for us is when business and finance gets behind nature in a much bigger way,” concludes Cahill in the film. She hopes that not only will members of the general public see the documentary, but business owners too, and that it will inspire them to consider supporting nature-based solutions in their own regions. “We have this incredible moment to really fundamentally reconnect to nature at an individual, economic and cultural level, because our health and nature’s health are completely interdependent.”
That look we see on Cahill’s face in the rainforest: it’s not just happiness but optimism. “Let’s make this a movement,” she enthuses.
Photography: Josh Craddock