Nature Heroes - Wildlife Croft Skye, Phil Knott and Laura Cunningham
Small is beautiful in Phil Knott’s and Laura Cunningham’s corner of Skye. Their Wildlife Croft Skye is managed with biodiversity and soil health to the fore. Using nature-based solutions, the croft is seeing big benefits to wildlife and resilience to the strong winds and inclement weather they regularly experience. Their careful management has seen the number of bird species breeding on the croft increase to include garden warbler, whitethroat and cuckoo. They were excited to discover the rare plant species moonwort on the croft and have recorded over 70 species of wild flowers.
Nature Heroes - Wildlife Croft Skye
Wildlife Croft Skye produces fruit and vegetables for themselves and for others. For them it's important to show that with the right land management you can have food, fuel, fibre, and biodiversity and sequester carbon.
Wildlife Croft Skye - Project Highlights
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A series of 6 graphical tiles.
- The Wildlife Croft Skye covers seven acres of land
- Phil and Laura have planted over 3,000 trees on the croft since 2018
- At least 300 species of moth have been identified on the croft
- Phil and Laura have spotted 85 species of bird on their land
- There are 20,000 crofts in Scotland
- Scotland’s crofts and common grazings cover around 750,000 hectares of land
Laura and Phil’s story is being shared on the Farming for a Better Climate site, which is a programme run by SAC Consulting and supported by the Scottish Government, Quality Meat Scotland, NFU Scotland and Soil Association Scotland. Phil is a very active mentor through the Farm Advisory Service’s mentoring scheme.
Wildlife Croft Skye received grants from the Woodland Trust to plant 600 trees and 1100 hedging plants in 2017 as part of the Trust’s MOREwoods and MOREhedges scheme.
Find out more
Scotland's Biodiversity Strategy and the Consultation
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