I’VE SPENT THE last two years talking to a lot of people doing brilliant things for Irish nature. I’ve introduced a few to you on The Journal before. Landowners, animal rescues, individuals humbly doing their part to restore our landscape and often without proper recognition.

There is also a growing number of farmers who want to do something for biodiversity, but don’t know where to start, don’t have the time to wade through paperwork, and can’t afford to gamble money on it.

That’s exactly the gap ReFarm was built to fill, and when I heard about their project in Wicklow, I had to learn more.

ReFarm is a not-for-profit set up by Anke Heydenreich, a sustainability investor focused on a range of social impact, biodiversity and sustainable development initiatives, and Dr Brendan Dunford, the ecologist behind two decades of farmer-led restoration work such as the Burrenbeo Trust — the charity responsible for initiatives such as Farming for Nature, The Hare’s Corner and the Burren Winterage Festival.

Hilda Crampton, Organic Farmer. Jack Morley, Rewildlife Jack Morley, Rewildlife

The idea is simple, but genuinely clever: rather than buying up land to rewild it, ReFarm raises blended finance — a mix of public and private funding — and pays farmers directly to carry out biodiversity actions on the land they already farm. I’ll come back to exactly how that funding model works a bit further down.

Given that farmers manage roughly 70% of the land in this country, that’s not a small detail. As Brendan put it to me, “when it comes to the crisis that we have in Ireland at the moment around biodiversity, we view farmers as the solution, and we’re prepared to invest in that.”

In conjunction with the actions, Trinity College Dublin, ReFarm’s independent research partner, is leading a multiannual research programme, led by Professor Jane Stout and Professor Martha O’Hagan.

But what struck me most, talking to farmer after farmer, wasn’t just the smart funding model or the research. It was how fast and how easy the whole process is.

Wildlife ponds, and lots of them

ReFarm works with farmers all over Ireland, and its first public-private partnership project was trialled in County Wicklow. In partnership with Wicklow County Council, ReFarm’s milestone project focused on one crucial wildlife habitat: ponds.

Not garden ponds — proper wetland habitats, with a minimum size of........

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