The Fear Paradox
Wetland landscape showing ecological restoration Pexels
About the author

Cain Blythe

Chartered environmentalist, author, and CEO

Cain Blythe has spent three decades moving between muddy field sites and financial-institution boardrooms — arguing, in both, that the recovery of the living world has to be paid for.

Explore the book Book Cain for speaking
Credentials
  • Published author: Rewilding (Icon Books / MIT Press, 2020), Amazon #16 Best Seller
  • Named in UK's 100 Most Influential Environmentalists (ENDS Power List, 2022)
  • Finalist, Environmental Professional of the Year (2023)
  • LinkedIn Top Green Voice, UK (30,000+ professional followers)
  • CEO: Ecosulis (B Corp ecological consultancy) and CreditNature (nature-finance fintech)
  • 15-20 keynote appearances annually at major climate and finance summits
What others say

Praise for Cain's work

Across two books and a body of practitioner work: voices from the field, the financial press, and the movement itself.

On Rewilding
A hugely useful and fascinating resume of rewilding — what it means, where it came from, why it's important and where it's going.
Isabella Tree
Author of Wilding
On The Fear Paradox
A brilliant and timely reframing of our relationship with the wild.
Ben Goldsmith
Author of God is an Octopus · CEO of Menhaden Capital
On The Fear Paradox
Cain Blythe traces our species' evolutionary discomfort with wildness all the way through to the boardrooms where the future of the living world is now being decided.
Alister Scott
Executive Director, Global Rewilding Alliance
On Rewilding
Compelling … a succinct and objective account.
Financial Times
On The Fear Paradox
Read it. It might make you uncomfortable. The best books always do.
Dr Rich Stockdale
Author of Scaling Conservation · CEO of Oxygen Conservation
Background

Field ecologist, fintech CEO, rewilding architect

I am a chartered environmentalist, tech entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of Ecosulis and CreditNature. I have worked on rewilding projects across the UK for over 20 years — including some of the earliest licensed beaver releases and 1000+ ha landscape-scale schemes on former agricultural land.

By 2020 it was obvious the consultancy model couldn't move money at the scale nature restoration needed. I set up CreditNature to build the measurement rails — the risk and integrity metrics — that would let institutional capital back nature recovery. I now work with the Scottish Government, the Global Rewilding Alliance and a growing set of financial institutions on the mechanics of getting private capital into the ground.

My previous book — Rewilding: The Radical New Science of Ecological Recovery (Icon Books / MIT Press, 2020, co-authored with Dr Paul Jepson) — was hailed as a "masterly job" by Isabella Tree and praised by the Financial Times. It reached Amazon's #16 Best Seller rank, has been translated into French and Dutch, and is available as an illustrated edition and an Audible audiobook.

Why this book, why now

I live at the exact intersection this book describes. I am not an observer of rewilding — I am one of its architects. Where my previous book was a primer on the science, The Fear Paradox is the bigger, bolder argument for why it matters and how to pay for it.

Speaking & thought leadership

Where ecology meets the boardroom

The Landscape of Fear: how predators sculpt ecosystems and drive carbon sequestration

The Human Fear Baseline: why we obsess over trivial risks and dismiss systemic ones

Nature on the Balance Sheet: the economics of rewilding and natural capital

The Augmented Wild: AI, remote sensing, and coexistence technology

The Rewilder's Mindset: from control to resilience in business and ecology