A scheme to get rich people to bankroll tree planting and peatland restoration is facing an uncertain future after failing to fund a single project.

The Nature Investment Partnership (NIP) was introduced by former Green minister Lorna Slater in March 2023 when her party was in coalition with the SNP.

She promised to entice city fund managers and the super-rich into backing nature projects. 

However, three years on, not a single penny has been deployed, with staff at quango NatureScot blaming the price of gold on its dire performance.

Now, much like the disastrous Deposit Return Scheme championed by Ms Slater, the scheme could be dropped.

Officials claim the soaring price of precious metals is to blame as it has left the project looking like a poor investment.

A report to a recent board meeting of NatureScot says: ‘The level of private investment into nature continues to lag behind our ambition.

‘The prognosis, against a background of global uncertainty and investors seeking safe havens (notably the record increase in gold prices) is that attracting investments into the relatively risky and untested nature market will continue to be challenging. We have substantial work to do to convince investors.’

It has also emerged that one of the investment partners – Aberdeen Investment – has walked out on the scheme, apparently believing it won’t provide an attractive return. 

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: ‘From recycling to nature restoration, the Greens’ reverse Midas touch has hindered progress on important issues.’

The scheme originally aimed to generate up to £2 billion of private finance to plant millions of native trees and restore peatland.

It was due to start with 74,000 acres of trees in the Southern Uplands near Moffat, Dumfriesshire, to lock up 6 million tons of carbon. Investors would then sell the carbon credits for a profit while ministers would edge closer to fulfilling their 2045 Net Zero pledge.

Ms Slater boasted at the 2023 launch: ‘Leveraging responsible private investment through valuable partnerships like this will be absolutely vital to meeting our climate targets and restoring our natural environment.’

Ms Slater left government in 2024 when the Bute House power-sharing deal broke up, but her ill-fated legacy lives on. Agriculture minister Jim Fairlie admitted last month: ‘No private finance has yet been directed through the partnership into on-the-ground projects.’

The departure of Aberdeen – brought in to raise £50 million – was followed by the UK Government pulling out as it had only pledged to match whatever the company put in.

Think tank Future Economy Scotland has now called on ministers to change tack. Senior economist Hanna Wheatley said: ‘Woodlands and peatlands do not easily align with the needs and expectations of private financiers.

‘These restoration projects, although vitally important, are unlikely to deliver the double-digit returns investors typically expect.’

The collapse of the Deposit Return Scheme in 2023 will end up costing the taxpayer millions of pounds. The bottle-recycling scheme would have seen shoppers pay an extra 20p for a single-use drinks can or bottle, to be refunded when it was returned to a machine.

However, the scheme became mired in complexities, among them that it differed from a similar project being organised by the UK Government for 2027.

Westminster insisted it had to be a closer match to what was being proposed for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 

The decision caused the collapse of industry- funded Circularity Scotland, without which the scheme could not go ahead. That left behind a trail of debt, including a £9.2 million loan from state-owned Scottish National Investment Bank.

Gold prices have soared since spring 2024 from around £1,600 an ounce to more than £3,500 today.

A spokesman for NatureScot said: ‘The NIP continues to explore a range of mechanisms to secure more private investment.’