Since 2014 Fauna & Flora has been championing and supporting a growing number of communities across Scotland to engage in local conservation and restoration efforts, focused initially in coastal areas. This has demonstrably helped these communities to deliver positive changes for nature, realise tangible biodiversity benefits, and has resulted in a dynamic and growing network of engaged and vocal community groups taking action and campaigning for wider policy changes. Fauna & Flora have subsequently expanded their work to focus on supporting community leadership of nature protection and restoration across land as well as sea.
With support from Elgol Fund for Nature, Fauna & Flora are able to extend the partnerships and support they offer to emergent community groups focused on nature protection in Scotland, and in particular to grow engagement with groups working on terrestrial conservation, where the opportunities for community-led nature restoration are clear. As part of this support, Fauna & Flora continue to deliver vital small grants through their Community Support Fund, seek to grow the funding available to benefit more groups, and maintain ongoing support to the Coastal Communities Network throughout its move to independence. At the same time, Fauna & Flora are working towards the longer term goal of creating a more enabling environment for community-led conservation through engagement with conservation policy and practice in Scotland, sharing the successes of, and challenges to, community-led conservation.
