Christmas 2021 Newsletter 

2021….a year of ups and downs!

2021 has been a challenging but also an exciting year.  The ongoing issues created by both the climate and the biodiversity crises have undoubtedly been exacerbated by Covid19 and the various measures in place to manage the pandemic.  However, public awareness has also been raised along with a strong determination to ‘do something about it’.  An attitude clearly demonstrated by our grantees and project partners, whose enthusiasm and commitment continue to drive projects onwards regardless.

On behalf of everyone associated with HIEF, many thanks for your invaluable support this year.  I hope that, wherever you are and however you celebrate, you have a good Christmas and I look forward to keeping you updated on next year’s projects in due course.

Best wishes,
Sally McNaught
Executive Director

2021….what a first year!

Christmas is traditionally a time to pause and reflect on the past year, and what a year we’ve had!  Thanks to you, HIEF has supported 16 innovative, community-led environment projects, on both land and water, with grants of between £5,000 and £15,000 to the tune of £220,000.

On behalf of everyone at HIEF, and all our inspiring project partners, thank you; we are very grateful for your support.

Best Grant – Marine: winners HIEF

HIEF were delighted to receive the award, and £500 prize, for the Best Grant – Marine category for our Mapping & modelling resource project grant at the inaugural Conservation Collective awards.

The potential impact of this resource project is huge and it was heartening to see that recognised and rewarded.

The full list of the 2021 awards is:

• Best Grant Land – Lanka Environment Fund(Wildlife Corridors)
• Best Grant Freshwater – Devon Environment Foundation (Beaver reintroduction)
• Best Grant Marine – Highlands & Islands Environment Foundation (Mapping & Modelling tool – fin fish farming)
• Best Grant Waste – Ionian Environment Foundation (Waste Action Awareness Week) & Menorca Preservation (Plastic Free Menorca)
• Fundraising Award – St Vincent & The Grenadines Environment Fund for the significant levels of funds raised for volcano relief efforts to support local communities.
• Innovation Award – IbizaPreservation for its work adapting to online methods of increasing the access of communities to local produce, sustainability focussed home school activities and eco-home tips.
• Impact Award – Cyclades Preservation Fund for Amorgorama, an initiative in partnership with the fishermen’s association of Amorgos, which gained recognition from the Greek ministry for its pilot programme stopping fishing for 28 days and cleaning up beaches with plastic pollution and discarded fishing gear instead, to allow local marine life to recover and fish species to breed undisturbed.

You can see a recording of the awards, including films showcasing each winner, here.

£15,000 donations in one week

This year, HIEF took part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge, a well-established matched giving campaign which enabled us to raise an amazing £15,000 in just one week.  This money will be added to the total available for grants in 2022, thus empowering even more inspirational community-led projects to make impact.

If you donated to this campaign, or indeed at any other time this year, thank you, we are truly grateful for your support.

The need for grants that restore nature in the Scottish highlands and islands greatly outweighs the funding we currently have, so please do support us if you can.

If you are keen to get involved, you can make a donation here or get in touch if you’d like to support us in other ways.

If you know of a project that could benefit from a grant from HIEF, our application form is here.