E110 Benedict Macdonald and Gil Martin: The Price of Restoration

What does it take to scale nature recovery—without owning a single acre?Benedict Macdonald and Gil Martin have been wrestling with that question from opposite ends of the field. Now, for the first time, they sit down together in the Shoot Room.Benedict is a rewilding visionary and award-winning author. Gil built one of the UK’s most ambitious wilding estates from the ground up. Together, they’re leading Restore, a business built to unlock land for restoration through natural capital—not ownership.But this isn’t a polite chat about carbon and biodiversity units.It’s about the grit required to actually sell this stuff.It’s about chasing deals, facing down doubt, and launching a new partnership—Restore Finance—to finally give nature projects the capital they need upfront.This episode is urgent, ambitious, and occasionally uncomfortable.Because if nature is priceless, how do we build a system that pays for it?And if we don’t—who will?