Hogan Lovells goes wild to 'Invest In Our Planet'

In 2019, Hogan Lovells began a three-year commitment with Snowchange Cooperative in Selkie, eastern Finland, a non-profit cooperative representing northern Indigenous and local communities across the Arctic and boreal, by rewilding a former peat extraction site in Linnensuo.

After successfully supporting the rewilding and restoration of the peatland site and to celebrate and support Earth Day’s theme this year, “Invest In Our Planet”, the firm has committed not only to continue to finance the rewilding efforts of Snowchange on its namesake Linnensuo peatland site, but also fund a new site focused on the Indigenous Sámi forests in Finland.

The new site will be managed by the Sámi – the only indigenous people of Europe. As reindeer herders dependent on northern boreal forests, the Sámi, like many other Indigenous societies, need biodiverse and healthy ecosystems to maintain their age-old cultures and ways of life. Our goal in funding this new stage of our partnership is to positively affect over 150 hectares of Arctic landscapes – working on both rewilding forests and preserving existing and high biodiversity forests, which are important to local species, reindeer herding and the Indigenous peoples.

Tero Mustonen, President of Snowchange Cooperative and lead author of the IPCC's AR6 climate report, said: "Collaboration and transformative action in the Arctic boreal forests addresses three simultaneous solutions at once - rich carbon storages, supporting the largest wild natural forest ecosystems in Europe and helping Europe's only Indigenous peoples - the Sámi. It’s hard to think of more value to support than this."

In addition to the work with Snowchange, a new partnership between Hogan Lovells and Rewilding Europe has started, which is intended to support the scaling and further development of rewilding across Europe through pro bono legal advice and financial sponsoring of a film series. The new series will consist of at least six short films of up to 20-minutes over the next two to three years, showcasing the vision for specific rewilding landscapes, the rewilding actions being carried out in these landscapes, and how these actions are benefitting wild nature and people.

Partner Philip Brown, who is one of the sponsoring partners, said: “We are delighted to be entering a second phase in our commitment to Snowchange and Rewilding Europe.  This helps to position our firm as a driver of nature-based innovations to tackle the rapidly advancing climate crisis, as well as aiding the crucial protection and restoring of biodiversity. Our continuing support highlights our firm's strategy of supporting innovation in environmental protection and advancing our sustainability goals and complements our  efforts to operate our own business more sustainably.” 

Everyone at Hogan Lovells is expected to dedicate at least 25 hours each year to approved pro bono and community investment work and work connected with rewilding forms an important part of this. The commitment to pro bono is part of the firm’s cultural DNA.  We collectively spend over 200,000 hours per year on work to benefit others by supporting the fulfilment of specific SDGs e.g. life on land, life below water, clean water and sanitation, sustainability cities and communities, climate action and partnerships for the goals.

Click here for more information about the Rewilding Hogan Lovells initiative, including our project partners Snowchange Cooperative, The Wildlife Trusts, Rewilding Europe and Rewilding Britain, and to listen to the firm’s Rewilding podcast series: ‘A pioneering story of hope and environmental action’.