Joint ventures for people and nature: New approaches to collaborative restoration
Highlands Rewilding recently completed a ground-breaking project under the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) programme, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with the Scottish Government and NatureScot. One of 27 projects in the first round of funding from this innovative Scottish programme, our 18-month project explored how “Community Joint Ventures” (CJVs) can link local people with the benefits of nature recovery.
The project focused on the estates we manage at Bunloit, Tayvallich and Beldorney, and aimed to co-develop business plans for community-led ventures that support or are supported by rewilding. These ventures were intended not only to be beneficial in their own right, but also to provide useful examples for others to build on, encouraging the close involvement of local people in land management more generally.
Today we are publishing our final project report to present what we’ve found, achieved and learned.
What is a Community Joint Venture?
Community Joint Ventures are a fairly new concept, used here to try and co-create local benefits with communities. We defined CJVs as collaborative enterprises between a landowner and local community groups or individuals that utilise environmental improvements from rewilding.
CJVs can span anything from sustainable food production and heritage tourism to mental health programmes and environmental education. The key is co-design—ideas must emerge from and serve both the land and the people who live there. Potentially, CJVs could become a mechanism for involving more people in nature restoration, boosting local economies skills development, job creation and community cohesion.
The CJV space within broader interactive possibilities for local communities and landowners
To guide this work, we drew on two other concepts: Community Wealth Building, a people-centred approach to generating social, financial, environmental and economic value locally, and Nature’s Contributions to People, which emphasises the range of benefits people receive from nature, including well-being, cultural heritage, and numerous goods and services.
How the project developed:
The project unfolded in four phases:
Understanding Place and People – Through community meetings, surveys, and conversations, we mapped local needs and aspirations.
Co-Development and Selection – A longlist of potential ventures was shaped and evaluated with community input.
Business Development – Selected CJVs received tailored support including market research, business modelling, and legal advice.
Evaluation and Learning – HRL captured insights to inform future projects, and developed guidelines for others to follow.
The CJVs
Four CJVs emerged from this collaborative process:
Community Growing Scheme – Bunloit Estate (Local lead: Glenurquhart Rural Community Association)
A local community growing scheme to produce food and related products for low cost, local consumption. Key components of the model envisaged include a ‘collective’ of local volunteers and organisations coordinating activity to produce a range of products utilising local spaces, education and skills development in nature-friendly horticulture, sustainable methods of local food production for local consumption, and a sustainable income model achieved through local sales with profits reinvested in the local community.
Photos from recent Let Us Grow design sessions, presentations and gatherings. See our social media post for more insight into these events!
Bike Hire – Tayvallich Estate (Local lead: Alasdair Maciness, Ally’s Bike Hire)
Developing, expanding and supporting ‘Ally’s Bike Hire’ (now Tayvallich Bikes) for bike hire in Tayvallich village for tourists and locals to get around the area sustainably. Providing access to nature, this project allows people to connect with the place, heritage and wildlife, and contributes to the development of sustainable travel and low-impact tourism.
A screengrab from the homepage of Tayvallich Bikes’ new website
Mindfulness through Nature Connection – Bunloit Estate (Local leads: The Highland Mindfulness Group and Nature 4 Health)
Two local charities developing and delivering a series of courses blending mindfulness with nature connection activities on the Bunloit estate. Utilising the myriad benefits the natural environment can offer, the venture will offer affordable sessions for local residents to develop mindfulness practice and deepen their connection to nature through hands-on experiences.
Image from an initial recce and introduction to the Bunloit site
'Gu h-àrd is gu h-ìosal - Above and Below: Foraging and Heritage Tours - Tayvallich Estate (Local Leads: Heather Thomas-Smith and Dónal Mac Giolla Chomhgaill)
Delivering events that combine foraging, heritage and nature education on the Tayvallich estate and the wider area to small groups on land and, where suitable, in water. Offered to both locals and tourists, these events will include identification and learning about plants and the environment as well as education about place names, Gaelic heritage, language and local culture.
Photos from an Above and Below Pilot session in late 2024
Next steps
Many other ideas were also generated and will form the basis for future work on land we manage, including a community deer larder and a rainforest tree nursery. In addition, a great deal can be learned from this project about specific CJVs and wider community involvement in restoration, and our report condenses this into key lessons that we think will be useful to others. We also provide a replicable model for CJVs in the context of nature recovery, including governance templates, legal structures, and a roadmap for co-design.
CJV Journey Map - Part 1
CJV Journey Map - Part 2. More detailed journey maps are available in the full published report.
Meanwhile, each venture will continue to develop with support from HRL and its community partners. Monitoring will assess social, economic, and environmental impacts, and HRL aims to incorporate its learnings into broader strategies for community engagement and sustainable land management.
Ultimately, we hope this project will play its part in supporting genuine recovery of nature and local communities, while land management and policy evolves to meet the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.