Dreel Burn, Fife

• The Dreel Burn is the principal stream of the East Neuk of Fife; it is 11.8km in length and carries water from the land to the Forth Estuary: its beaches, and shellfish and fishing grounds. The project covers the entire watershed - c 5,000 hectares of agricultural landscape and the coastal town of Anstruther.
• It is a community-led project, with Anstruther Improvements Association (AIA) taking the lead role on community engagement and realisation of measurable social impacts.
• To enable nature restoration activity to take place across the whole landscape, Fife Coast & Countryside Trust (FCCT) have now secured the mandate from the majority of landowners in the catchment, to help them both access the natural capital markets and create a shared resource to respond to the agricultural reform bill.

• Our focus is on enriching productive landscapes whilst reducing the negative impacts of agricultural activity, removing barriers to fish passage, supporting bird and invertebrate populations, better water management and creation of new wildlife habitats, including riparian woodland buffers.
• We recognise the vital role that “nature finance” will play in enabling farmers, landowners and communities to deliver activities to improve and restore the Dreel Burn and the surrounding environment.
• Core to this objective is mobilising agri supply chain funding, as well as voluntary nature offset purchasers, to assist farming transition to a regenerative agricultural model that in turn supports nature recovery.

• The Dreel Burn project is working with the community who live in the catchment of the Dreel Burn, to develop consensus on how the Dreel Burn could be improved for the benefit of the community.
• Thanks to funding through the Dreel Burn Investment Readiness Partnership community engagement activities were organised on the day of the 2024 Duck Race event, an annual event that attracts many families and visitors to the Dreel Burn.
• The community want a clean, biodiverse and vibrant river, valued by the farming, fishing, rural and urban communities of the East Neuk.
• To achieve this we will improve the burn as a source of water and precious green space for local residents and visitors, and as a natural habitat for wildlife.
• The project will benefit and protect the sustainability of key industries in the wider catchment area, including agriculture, coastal fishing, shellfish breeding and tourism.
• We aim to transform local attitudes towards the burn, to ensure that the project’s positive outcomes are sustainable and enduring.
• See the Dreel Burn Community Vision page for more details.

• Over 2025/26 we will be launching Nature Finance Fife (NFF), a regional delivery vehicle for blending philanthropic, public and private finances for the benefit of nature and people. 
• Composed of a set of three new regional entities:
• 1. natural capital producers farming co-operative
  2. trusted project developer (contracted by co-operative)
  3. environment bank.
• The environment bank can buy nature credits from the cooperative, and hold them in reserve, for buyers to purchase in line with their specific requirements.
• Supply chain investment can support transition costs.
• Public and philanthropic funding can support communities to build resilience and grow the project pipeline (supply).

• The Dreel Burn Investment Readiness Partnership, was establishing thanks to funding by the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) grant scheme
• The DBIRP is highly collaborative, with co-design between interested parties being key to our core values of transparency and integrity.
• Understanding and reflecting the needs of all stakeholders, including landowners, is fundamental to our approach and is what we believe will be the key to its success.
• Active partners include Anstruther Improvements Association (AIA), Fife Coast & Countryside Trust (FCCT), Fife Council, Foundation Scotland, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), Kana, Rebalance Earth, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS), SP Energy Networks (SPEN) and University of St Andrews.

Over 2023 and 2024 we faced several challenges in developing our project:

• Lower demand for voluntary biodiversity credits than originally envisaged.
• The need for a stronger ‘value proposition’ before engaging and recruiting the support of the 18 landowners on the Dreel Burn.
• A lack of an ‘off-the-shelf’ and ‘high integrity’ bundled carbon product that would work within our agricultural context.
• Challenges in finding the best way to engage communities and landowners on the highly technical and often opaque nature of ‘natural capital markets’.

To tackle these challenges, advice/peer-2-peer learning has been sought through a wide-ranging consultation and market engagement process, managed through Nature Finance Fife (NFF).

• A community-led approach to developing natural capital projects is possible! It requires public/philanthropic support at the early stages to build local capacity and skillsets to be able to engage in nature finance. It also requires farmers to be included in the definition of community!
• Nature finance can provide a significant incentive that can pull farmers and land managers towards more environmentally sustainable practices. Especially where it adds value to existing revenue from sales of agricultural produce.
• A co-operative approach to this new nature finance commercial opportunity is essential. Co-operatives provide scale, pool resources, remove hassle for their members, mitigate risk, and exist to return value to their members and their community. Their members use, own, and govern the business, ensuring it benefits its members and remains true to its purpose.