2025 Nature of Scotland Awards Winners sand Shortlist

Thank you to everyone who entered the awards this year and congratulations to our shortlist and winners!    

Sponsored by NatureScot    

• Winner: Seven Golf Courses for Nature

This project spans seven golf courses, a wonderful greenspace of around 550 ha. The objective was to enhance biodiversity, improve habitat connectivity and create spaces where nature can thrive within the environment we maintain for golf.

Highly Commended: Visionary ESG Sponsorship Enables Agroecological Urban Farm

Environmental, Social and Governance sponsorship funding from Federated Hermes, on behalf of BT Pension Scheme members, has enabled development of Lauriston Farm. Led by the Edinburgh Agroecology Co-operative, the 100-acre North Edinburgh site is transforming depleted monoculture pasture into a vibrant hub for biodiversity, community, and sustainable food, showcasing urban agroecology in action.

• Winner: Green Shores

Saltmarshes are coastal habitats valued as carbon stores, as natural shoreline defences, and for specialist biodiversity. Green Shores are restoring and reconnecting fragmented saltmarshes in the Dornoch Firth and the Tay and Eden Estuaries to ensure the survival of this rare habitat, and to combat climate change.

Highly Commended: The Magnificent Migration: A Wild Salmon's Journey

Wild Atlantic Salmon are endangered in Scotland. They need help. The West Coast Tracking Project uncovers the incredible journeys these fish take along Scotland’s coast. By learning where they go, we can better protect them. The goal? To return this iconic Scottish species to health for generations to come.

Sponsored by GreenPower   

• Winner: Kilminning – Turning Tarmac into Wetland

The Crail community transformed a tarmac-covered brownfield site into a local nature reserve in 2024.They organised a Community Land Asset Transfer, raised £260K to dig a wetland and bury the tarmac, and planted a meadow and 4,000 trees. In the spring of 2025, around 17,500 toad tadpoles appeared, along with wildflowers and smiles

• Winner: Johnnie Balfour - Balbirnie Home Farms

Balbirnie Home Farms in Fife is transforming its mixed enterprise by integrating livestock into arable systems, planting 6.5km of hedgerows, and boosting biodiversity across over 100 ha of habitat. Through regenerative practices and reduced inputs, it’s building a more resilient, nature-friendly, and economically viable farming future.

Highly Commended: Fife's Corn Bunting Partnership

The Corn Bunting has disappeared from many farming regions. But a population thrives in Fife thanks to long-term collaboration between farmers, estates, golf courses, the University of St Andrews and RSPB Scotland. They’ve worked together to create suitable habitats for the buntings, and monitor population growth across the East Neuk and North East Fife.

Highly Commended: Peelham Farm - Sustainable Self-Reliance

Peelham is a family-run 550-acre organic farm that champions sustainable, pasture-based farming and high-quality, ethical food. Their approach restores habitats, promotes biodiversity, and shows that caring for land, animals and people can produce exceptional, environmentally positive food.

• Winner: Recovery Through Nature in the Phoenix Forest

Phoenix Forest is a unique partnership between Phoenix Futures and the John Muir Trust, engaging people in nature, and improving biodiversity and personal wellbeing. Over 2,500 native trees have been planted to grow the Phoenix Forest in the Scottish Borders. Each tree celebrates someone who has overcome drug and alcohol problems.

Highly Commended: Healing Spaces: Growing Wellbeing with Nature

Healing Spaces: Growing Wellbeing with Nature Healing Spaces is transforming mental health and learning disability care across NHS Tayside by putting nature at the heart of recovery. Co-produced green spaces and inclusive partnerships help people reconnect with nature, improve wellbeing, and build resilience, while enhancing biodiversity in therapeutic environments across hospital and community settings.

Sponsored by James Hutton Institute   

• Winner: It'll Never Work - A Ground-breaking Electric Fishing Vessel

Electric Fishing Vessel (EFV) Lorna Jane is the first and only commercial fishing vessel registered in the UK (and possibly worldwide). Designed and delivered by Argyll boat builder and Lobster fisherman, Hans Unkles, EFV Lorna Jane provides inspiration, and is a prototype, pioneering the development of environmentally friendly, sustainable fishing methods.

Highly Commended: Reducing the Impact of Predation with Diversionary-Feeding

Project partners tested an innovative, ethical tool to reduce predation by Pine Martens on the nests of critically endangered Capercaillie. Well-timed diversionary feeding, a non-lethal intervention, focused on the impact rather than the abundance of predators, halved Pine Marten predation on artificial nests and doubled the number of chicks per hen.

Sponsored by ScottishPower Renewables  

• Winner: Affric Highlands

With an ambitious, 30-year vision, Affric Highlands is uniting communities, landowners and businesses in a shared mission to restore habitats across more than 200,000 hectares of the central Highlands. The goal is a climate-resilient, regenerating landscape – rich in biodiversity and opportunity – where people, nature, and livelihoods support one another to thrive.

Highly Commended: Nature-Based Solutions Delivering Climate Adaptation Across Glasgow

Glasgow City Council and partners have delivered a pioneering programme of nature-based solutions that supports urban climate adaptation. By restoring watercourses and building blue-green infrastructure, this innovative initiative has transformed the living environment of vulnerable communities; created vibrant new habitats to support biodiversity; reduced flood risk; and enabled brownfield site regeneration.

Highly Commended: Peatland ACTION – growing Scotland’s future nature-friendly workforce

Peatland ACTION’s unique and innovative workforce development programme has been crucial in putting Scotland at the forefront of developing landscape-scale natural solutions. It plays a vital part in growing the workforce needed to increase the quality, pace and scale of peatland restoration, key to tackling Scotland’s biodiversity and climate crises.

Supported by VisitScotland 

• Winner: Biosphere Experiences: Nature-Friendly Adventures for All

Southwest Scotland has UNESCO Biosphere status, signifying its importance within the global tapestry of natural and cultural heritage. The Galloway & Southern Ayrshire Biosphere Partnership (GSABP) developed Biosphere Experiences to support sustainable leisure and hospitality, and to deliver unique, meaningful visitor experiences that centre connecting with nature.

Highly Commended: Birthplace of Scottish Tourism: Scenic Tower & Lookouts, Loch Katrine

The sensitively designed Roderick Dhu Scenic Tower, viewpoint platforms and linking path on the site above Trossachs Pier are credited with being the Birthplace of Scottish Tourism. They connect thousands of visitors with the special magical natural and cultural heritage qualities of Loch Katrine and the Great Trossachs Forest NNR.

Sponsored by Laphroaig

• Winner: Prof. Rhys Green – Corncrake Science and Conservation

Rhys’s immense, decades-long contribution to problemsolving conservation science has improved the status of threatened species globally. In Scotland, his work has focussed on the Corncrake. Rhys’s ingenuity, insight and dedication to revealing this elusive bird’s secrets, and developing simple yet effective solutions to help it, have allowed farmers, crofters and conservationists to recover populations throughout the Hebrides.

Highly Commended: Ashleigh Whiffin: Championing Scotland's Biodiversity with Entomology Collections

Ashleigh Whiffin tirelessly promotes biodiversity in Scotland through public engagement, scientific research, and passionate advocacy for insect conservation. Her transformative initiatives have inspired a diverse range of communities, elevated women in science, and raised awareness, reshaping Scotland’s understanding of the significance of biodiversity and the importance of natural history collections.

Sponsored by SSEN Transmission

• Winner: Biodiversity Literacy (BioLit) VIP

This student-led biodiversity project at the University of St Andrews enhances native wildlife through habitat creation, ecological monitoring, and community engagement. By combining science, education, and policy influence, it strengthens biodiversity on campus and fosters a culture of environmental stewardship across the university and town.

• Winner: Ullapool Sea Savers - Love Our Seas!

Love Our Seas was a two-year, NLHF-funded, youthled project that empowered Ullapool’s young people to drive marine conservation locally. Through creativity, activism, and community engagement, they inspired others to protect the ocean. The project nurtured their ideas, leadership, and passion to safeguard the coastal environment for future generations.

Highly Commended: Burray's Beautiful Birds

Since 2015, Burray Primary children have supported the Little Tern colony on Barrier 4 Beach. Each year, they clean the beach, make decoys, and design posters to raise awareness. Their efforts have helped protect the birds and support the colony’s growth through education, creativity, and hands-on conservation.