Community Joint Ventures - progress report
This report provides an update on our FIRNS Community Joint Ventures project to develop collaborative enterprises with the local communities living adjacent to the lands that Highlands Rewilding manage. We’ll update you on the work so far, tell you about the selected ventures and what’s to come over the next few months.
Executive Summary
What is FIRNS?
The FIRNS Community Joint Ventures is an innovative and experimental project supported by The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS), delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with The Scottish Government and in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund.' This project seeks to develop collaborative enterprises with the local communities living adjacent to the lands that Highlands Rewilding manage which benefit from and/or contribute to nature restoration. This is part of our wider work as a company to demonstrate how local communities can benefit in various ways from rewilding and create a just and equitable future for people, place and nature. It is innovative in approach and hopes to test ideas about how nature finance can work for both people and places, as well as demonstrate that nature benefit and community benefit are not an either-or but work in tandem.
The “Joint Ventures for Scalable Community Benefits from Rewilding” project is supported by The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS). Delivered by NatureScot in collaboration with The Scottish Government and in partnership with the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Thanks to the National Lottery Players.
What have we done to date?
Over the last 10 months we have been working with local communities and partners to develop ideas for joint ventures.
SCOPING: We have sourced ideas through local community events, informal conversations, community surveys and online engagement, and conversations with local partners.
LONGLISTING: We narrowed the initial ideas down to a longlist and co-developed ventures with idea owners into more detailed proposals. We discounted ideas at this stage which crossed red lines either for the community or Highlands Rewilding’s operational model.
SHORTLISTING: We created a short list of 8 ideas through a selection process that involved grading by both an internal team at Highlands Rewilding team and local advisors in the communities. The ideas were all tested against the same criteria and the scores were totaled and averaged.
FINAL SELECTION: We sought further feedback on the final shortlist with a second round of community events and then had a final internal meeting.
What are the selected ventures?
Find out more about our selected ventures in our announcement blog.
What have we learnt?
Here are the headlines of what we have learnt. We will be detailing these in a series of blog posts on our website
Build on a secure base of community relations and previous projects
Prepare well with your internal team
Understand that developing new ventures takes time
Start with a clear land management plan and objectives and bring examples of what is possible to communities
Balance the need for open-sourcing of ideas with clear criteria for the project
Consider the complexities of working across varied localities
What’s next and how can you get involved?
Do you live or work locally to a Highlands Rewilding site?
Come to an event Find out more about ventures local to you at events (in the coming months) which will showcase the ventures being developed and our wider work on our estates. Sign up to our local mailing lists here.
Support the CJVS: If you would like to take part in their activities then get in touch and watch out for events. If there’s any other way in which you can help develop or promote one of the ideas, whether testing it, advertising it connecting with wider networks, then get in touch.
Develop wider projects: We are still interested to explore other opportunities for creating joint ventures with communities local to our estates; if you'd like to take a new or existing idea forward, please do come and speak with us'.
Are you a landowner, community group, or researcher interested in community involvement in nature restoration?
Come to a community of practice event and hear about our work – keep an eye out on our website and local facebook groups for upcoming events, and sign up to our local mailing lists.
Read our series of blog posts and our report on the experience of doing this project.
Share your experiences of working on a FIRNS funded project.
You can find out more about the FIRNS process and project here.