Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate has received the Scottish Land & Estates' Helping It Happen award for conservation in recognition for Project Laxford, the estate’s landscape scale, ecosystem-wide, conservation project, in partnership with the Atlantic Salmon Trust, with the goal of restoring wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout populations.

The Helping It Happen Awards, supported by Nature Scot – Scotland’s nature agency, advising the government on improving the environment – celebrate initiatives that are having transformative effects on their communities, environment and local economy and the roles of estates, farms, rural businesses and individuals who are helping rural Scotland thrive. 

The River Laxford has been a stronghold of wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout for centuries - its name is Old Norse for salmon fiord - but in recent years their populations have seen a rapid decline, mirroring conditions throughout the north Atlantic. 

Delivering the 10-year project, one of the largest catchment wide restoration projects in the UK, we hope to restore 118km2 of the landscape and plant up to a million trees, enhancing biodiversity and benefitting the whole ecosystem while enabling wild Atlantic salmon and sea trout to thrive. 

Taking an ecosystem approach to nature restoration, benefiting not only fish but also enhance wider biodiversity, and monitoring the positive impact of key interventions through one of Scotland’s largest fish monitoring systems, we hope to be an exemplar for catchment management with the knowledge gained benefiting other river systems throughout the world.

For more information on Project Laxford, click here.