Community Joint Ventures

In October 2023 we received funding to co-develop a set of investment-ready business plans for community joint ventures on and around Bunloit, Beldorney, and Tayvallich.

This 18-month project explored how “Community Joint Ventures” (CJVs) can link local people with the benefits of nature recovery by co-developing 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.

In June 2025 we published our final report to present what we’ve found, achieved and learned.

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.

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.

Read our executive summary blog or download full report

Funding

Logos of Net Zero Scotland, Scottish Government, NatureScot Scotland's Nature Agency, and Heritage Fund. Includes a butterfly symbol and text in English and Gaelic.

Our project is part of the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) scheme, co-funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with the Scottish Government and NatureScot.

Thanks to National Lottery players!

Ours is one of 27 projects in the first round of funding from this innovative Scottish programme. It ran for 18 months (until 31 March 2025) across the three estates owned by Highlands Rewilding. Our total budget was £194,700, with 50% provided by NatureScot and 50% by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. This funding was used to support a Community Engagement Coordinator role and a Marine Rewilding Lead within Highlands Rewilding, as well as a programme of community meetings and initial development of joint venture ideas.

The communities local to the lands managed by us are at the centre of this project, and co-designed and co-developed this process.

The joint ventures capitalise on environmental improvements from rewilding, and the valuable ecosystem services they generate. They are be a mechanism for involving more people in nature restoration, boosting the economy, skills development, job creation and cohesion in local communities.

Community joint ventures (CJVs)

To us “community joint venture” means a new business created jointly by Highlands Rewilding and the communities local to the land we manage to benefit from improvements in natural and cultural heritage.

Central to Highlands Rewilding’s approach is co-creation of the joint ventures with the local communities. We wanted the business ideas for the ventures to come from the communities themselves, to meet their needs and interests and use their expertise to tap into the many ecosystem services that the rewilding of the land can bring.

CJVs developed under our FIRNS funded project combined:

Communities local to our sites

(their heritage, needs, priorities, expertise)

Our rewilding activities and expertise

Restored nature and its benefites (ecosystem services)

The communities across the three land areas are very different to one another. Each contains a vast array of expertise, interests, and needs.

The project has also funded legal advice on the most appropriate ownership structures for the CJVs, set up their structure and constitutional documents and finalised the shareholders or members agreements for each. These are costs that community groups may otherwise be unable to afford, and we have provided a framework that can be used elsewhere.

The CJV space within broader interactive possibilities for local communities and landowners (see final report for full size images).

From horticulture to heritage, we are delighted to have selected four community joint ventures (CJVs):

Community Growing Scheme – Bunloit Estate
Bike Hire – Tayvallich Estate
Mindfulness through Nature Connection – Bunloit Estate
'Gu h-àrd is gu h-ìosal - Above and Below: Foraging and Heritage Tours - Tayvallich Estate

For more details on each of these ventures, please read our CJV announcement blog, progress report and final report.

CJV Business Modelling

There was no accepted blueprint for joint ventures between a for-profit company, such as HRL, and local communities working together on nature restoration. The project, therefore, includesd funding for an interdisciplinary team working in rewilding, community engagement and business development, with resources for support from professional consultancies.

The key deliverables of this project are robust business models for up to 5 CJVs. This means that each community joint venture will receive professional business development support in the following areas:

Market research
Business and financial modelling
Legal and governance structure

Please read our final report for details on these models.

Ecosystem services

Ecosystem services are the direct and indirect contributions which ecosystems make to human well-being. These range from tangible things like food or wood, or systems which deliver clean water or limit flooding, to more intangible contributions like the way ecosystems give us a sense of place or spiritual connection.

NatureScot has created a very clear infographic giving examples of what ecosystem services are and their contributions to human well-being (Source: nature.scot):

Land ecosystem services

To put this theory in our context it is worth thinking about the ecosystem services that Highlands Rewilding’s lands provide. Looking at Bunloit and Beldorney, we can list the following:

Provisioning

Food and drink
Materials