Community Group: Uigshader Living Forest Project Ltd

Researchers: Beth Bridge, PhD researcher and ecologist (University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Rural College)

Location: Uigshader, Isle of Skye

Monitoring biodiversity in a community site aimed at developing woodland crofting as part of a community climate change mitigation project.

Beth Bridge, Researcher, said: 

I think the casualness of the project meant that the relationships developed deeper than it would have if it was a work relationship or something coming from the top at some point

About the project

Uigshader Living Forest Project Ltd are a local group in the North of Skye who are exploring possibilities for woodland crofting on the island. They saw this programme as an opportunity to begin the process of making the case for small scale agro-forestry as a realistic and financially sound way in which land in Skye could be utilised for the benefit of their shared environment, as well as a means of alleviating some of the socio-economic pressures the island faces.

Community-researcher partnership:

The group used the funding to enlist the support of Beth Bridge, an ecologist and PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh and Scotland’s Rural College, in order to quantify the benefits for biodiversity and climate mitigation which woodland crofting could offer over existing land use practices in the area.

They hosted a series of volunteering/forum events at their woodland site, where community members got involved in a number of activities, including planting trees, surveying biodiversity, carrying out day-to-day site maintenance, all while discussing in a group setting the intricacies of land management and the role of sustainable housing as climate mitigation measures.

Research impacts:

The community-researcher partnership helped the group to engage with their local community in new and innovative ways, attracting more people to the project and passing on skills in biodiversity monitoring. By creating a biodiversity ‘baseline’, and training community members to monitor biodiversity themselves, the group has greatly improved their capacity and confidence to engage with research and further develop their understanding of climate issues locally.

The personal commitment and relationships that the researcher developed with the group was recognised as strengthening their collective work and they have been able to engage with wider networks across Skye as a result of the project. Their relationship with the researcher also continues to grow as she will be working with them throughout the remainder of her PhD with more site visits planned already.