Lottery cash set to make difference to Skye project
As World Water Day shone a focus on ocean health and marine environments last Sunday (March 22), the National Lottery Heritage Fund is supporting five new projects helping address the sustainability of Scotland’s waters.
The organisation has announced National Lottery funding of £1.3 million so that important initiatives, from increasing people’s ocean literacy through a new Dynamic Earth immersive experience to the community restoration of native oyster beds, can go ahead.
Caroline Clark, Director Scotland of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, said: ‘As we celebrate Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters, there has never been a better time to raise awareness of the important role our marine heritage has in the future of a sustainable environment. Not only is the direct conservation we fund vitally important, but we hope that through our projects, there will be increased awareness of how and why we need to change our behaviours in order to protect our future.’
Locally, plans to develop the Plock parkland in Kyle received £196,100 to improve this important green space for the wellbeing of the community.
The three-year project will combine volunteers’ activities, such as grassland conservation, wildflower planting and clearing ditches so that otters can move more freely, with physical works such as renovating the former Skye Toll office into a community hub and creating a benchmark trail to promote fitness.
Working with health partners, this recreational greenspace will support the most vulnerable in the remote community and host many activities including a large green-health event for the Year of Coasts and Waters.
A further £216,400 is going towards the restoration of native oyster beds at a sea loch on the mid-Argyll coast.
Up to one million native oysters are expected to be grown there over five years to create a self-sustaining population in what will be Scotland’s first community driven rewilding project.
The ‘Discovering the Deep’ installation at Dynamic Earth, is focusing on educating people of all ages about Scotland’s deep water marine heritage through focus on the work of unsung hero, Charles Wyville Thomson whose pioneering exploration of Scotland’s marine environment in the 19th century launched the modern science of oceanography. This project received £430,000 to educate over 250,000 people annually at the Dynamic Earth centre in Edinburgh.
The Gateway to the Hebridean Whale Trail received £250,000 to develop a centre in Tobermory at the former Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust Centre.
The Trail links 33 locations across the west coast of Scotland and the centre will have new facilities in both English and Gaelic for visitors.
Finally, the Gateway to Gigha project received £228,100 to increase active travel options for tourists to the island located three miles west of the Kintyre peninsula.
Increasingly popular with visitors, locals want to decrease the impact cars have on the natural environment of the island.