Supporting Nature’s Recovery: Place Informatics Partners with DEFRA Landscape Recovery Projects
The UK is undergoing a quiet but powerful environmental transformation through the DEFRA Landscape Recovery scheme, a long-term initiative aimed at restoring nature, enhancing biodiversity, and addressing climate change. With 56 projects across England, the scheme represents a landmark in collaborative, landscape-scale conservation- uniting farmers, landowners, and environmental organisations to reimagine rural land use for the next 20+ years.
Place Informatics, a leader in location and visitor analytics, is proud to be working with two of these pioneering projects, supporting their success through data-driven insights into land use, visitor behaviour and engagement.
Landscape Recovery is one of three Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes from DEFRA, focusing on large-scale, long-term environmental restoration. The first round funded 22 projects targeting river restoration and species recovery, while the second round expanded to 34 initiatives centred on climate resilience, net-zero goals, and wildlife-rich habitats.
To guide and optimise these efforts, Place Informatics provides valuable data services that support:
- Measuring public engagement with green spaces
- Monitoring visitor movement patterns across protected landscapes
- Understanding seasonal behaviours and pressure points
- Offering detailed insights to help support land use decisions and future funding applications
With years of experience in supporting local authorities, landowners, businesses and environmental partners, Place Informatics’ analytics are helping projects ensure their landscapes are not only biodiverse but also accessible, welcoming, and sustainable.
By leveraging detailed visitor analytics, Place Informatics offers these projects detailed insight into how landscapes are used and appreciated, from walking trails and nature reserves to important green spaces across the UK. This allows land managers to make informed decisions about infrastructure, habitat access, visitor impact, and environmental concerns.
The solution provides accurate counts of people and bicycle visits across parks and green spaces, regardless of their size or shape, offering hard evidence for funding applications. The data details daily and hourly visitor numbers, dwell times, and location-specific activity, and can be overlaid with weather information to reveal behaviour patterns. All metrics meet Natural England’s acceptance standards.
Clive Hall, CEO of Place Informatics, “Understanding how people interact with the landscape is key to ensuring its long-term protection and accessibility. We’re proud to be contributing to these transformational projects, helping partners track their progress and demonstrate impact for both nature and communities.”
As DEFRA prepares for future rounds of the scheme, interest in landscape-scale collaboration continues to grow. Place Informatics is perfectly positioned to support new projects with insights that balance environmental outcomes with community engagement, bringing technology and real visitor experiences together in the service of a greener, healthier countryside.
