Speyside Fields for Wildlife has two key roles:

 

1          We work with farmers and other landowners to identify opportunities to create and enhance wildlife sites. This is mainly in growing special crops to benefit a range of wildlife. These may be summer flowers as a source of pollen and nectar for bees, butterflies and other pollinators, or, seed crops to benefit a range of seed eating birds and other wildlife during autumn and winter.

 

We also provide free advice to anyone wishing to protect or enhance their land for wildlife.

 

We can provide financial support to farmers and landowners who provide a piece of land on which to grow these wildlife crops.  This may be a payment as a ‘rent’ for that piece of land, or as a contribution towards the seed costs. Depending on the ownership status of the land, these payments may be met in full, or partly, towards the cost of establishing the crop.

 

Due to the complexity of ownership, tenure and charitable status of each piece of land (farm/croft/extended garden etc) an agreement is drawn up for each site. The conditions of that agreement are therefore particular to each site, whether it be a farm, croft, extended garden or community owned land. SFW will not normally fund a project if that site is already receiving support under another scheme.

 

2          In order to fund these agreements with landowners, we raise funds to maintain an annual budget.

We aim to grow support through patronage and other supporters who help fund our projects.

Supporters are free to give donations towards our work but patrons give an annual donation, which is at a higher level set by the steering group at the annual general meeting.

 

Where we operate

As our name suggests, we work within Strathspey.  Since a significant part of our funding comes via a grant from the Cairngorms National Park Authority, we concentrate our efforts within the CNP.