We don’t always think of the Church as a landlord, do we?! The Church of England as a whole owns 200,000 acres of land – some of which includes the things you would expect, like church buildings and graveyards. Some amazing things are being done for nature on church land, like EcoChurch which helps churches take practical action on caring for God’s land through worship and teaching, managing buildings well, and promoting green lifestyle choices. Another beautiful initiative, Caring for God’s Acre, protects nature on burial sites around the country!

Less obviously, 105,000 acres of this land is actually owned and managed by the Church Commissioners, the wealthy investment arm of the Church of England with a £10.3bn asset portfolio.

If you want to imagine what this amount of land looks like when added together, think of Birmingham, which as Britain’s second biggest city measures 65,000 acres in total–and is home to over 1.1m people. The Church Commissioners profit from an area almost twice as big as that. Not bad for one landowner! In fact the concentration of land into the hands of a few is one of the reasons why we need to ask large landowners to step up to act for nature, rather than being able to just do it ourselves. If you want to know more about how so few got so much land in the first place then you may like to check out our video on the subject.

Let’s look into their land – as much as we can!

Exactly where all the Church Commissioners’ 105,000 acres of land is located is unclear as the Commissioners have repeatedly declined to release a map of the land they own, and the Church is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. One of the asks of our Rewild the Church campaign is for the Commissioners to make a map of their land publicly available. By making this information accessible, the Commissioners will demonstrate they are willing to be transparent and accountable for the way their land is managed, which is what we should expect of all large landowners!

However, we do know that they have farmland dotted throughout England, with landholdings from Devon to County Durham and many counties in between. And we know it’s not very nature-friendly!

Analysis of Church Commissioners’ land by author and campaigner, Guy Shrubsole, and botanist, Tim Harris reveals that it is significantly nature depleted. Woodland coverage on Commissioners’ land is only 3%! That’s far less than the UK’s already dismal average of 12%. Not only do they rank bottom of the list of the UK’s top 10 landowners for woodland coverage; they are also falling further behind. The National Trust, for example, has 18% woodland coverage already, and has recently committed to rewilding 30% of its land!

Sadly, over half of the important habitats, or Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), on Commissioners’ land are in an unfavourable condition. Given that Britain ranks in the bottom 10% of all nations globally for biodiversity, this suggests the Church is presiding over some of the most nature depleted land on the planet! We know it cannot be that clergy would want their pensions funded from land depleted of nature for the sake of maximising profit, when other options exist.

The Commissioners have made some promising gestures in the right direction. The creation of a new nature reserve on the River Wye in 2023 is a great sign that the Commissioners understand the importance of giving land over to nature. The issue is scale. The River Wye project is a 100 acre site – just 0.095% of their holdings!

So how can the Church Commissioners meet the 30×30 target? 

Yes, the Church Commissioners could do a lot more. They have the resources and the land – and who should we expect to want to be better stewards of God’s creation than the Church themselves? That’s why we’re asking them to commit to a target of rewilding 30% of their land by 2030.

Only a staggering 3% of England is currently protected for nature, which means that if we are to reach the UN’s 30×30 target, then another 27% of the country will need to be rewilded. Given that 67% of England is farmed, rewilding some of this farmland will play an important role in the solution to our country’s nature and biodiversity crises. 

The majority of the Church Commissioners’ huge amount of land is farmland, and so they, alongside their tenant farmers, have an exciting opportunity to contribute to this solution in a big way. This will require working with their tenants to carefully identify land suitable for rewilding, and supporting them in the transition to reintroduce and protect the biodiversity of these landscapes. 

A closer look at the Church Commissioners’ portfolio shows us that the 30×30 target is entirely doable. Of their rural holdings, around 3% is woodland, 2% are Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and 5% are Grade 4 farmland. There’s also 5,000 acres of lowland peat within the Church Commissioners’ ownership that is technically Grade 1 farmland, but when farmed, emits a staggering amount of carbon into the atmosphere instead of sequestering it – and the Church Commissioners have been looking into restoring it for that reason. These areas together would already take us halfway to the 30% goal. The remaining 15% can, in consultation with their tenants, be derived from the Grade 3 farmland that makes up the majority of the Church Commissioners’ portfolio. 

So, this is how rewilding 30% of the Church Commissioners’ land is easily possible. Not only is it possible, restoring and protecting the biodiversity of this land is crucial to secure a future that is climate resilient, with thriving ecosystems that support our food system, and brings joy to local communities. 

So, what now?

The Church Commissioners made the truly commendable step of divesting from fossil fuels in 2023. But the Paris Climate Agreement is the UN target that covers only the first half of the climate and nature crisis. Now they need to attend to the other half – the UN’s biodiversity framework which requires us to rewild 30% of land by 2030. The science is clear – nature is in decline, species are being lost at an alarming rate and ecosystems are collapsing. Nature needs a second Noah’s Arc, and the Church Commissioners are in the perfect position to create that on their land! If you haven’t already, add your name to the petition here!