Isle of Eigg
I meet Maggie Fyffe, the IEHT secretary, on a sunny September day in the cafe – one of the businesses established by IEHT – nestling close to the ferry quay.
She describes the enormous benefits to local people of the buy-out, the biggest being the creation of a reliable electricity system fuelled wholly by renewables: solar, wind and hydro-electricity ensure that there is power whatever the weather. Getting grants for this and other work, such as new fencing, would have been impossible for a private owner. Woodland on the island is managed by IEHT; tenancies for farms and the scattering of crofts have been regularised;
Control and the ability to do something is the biggest single change.
there have been major housing improvements; and the big house – the Lodge – has been sold to become an environmental education centre. Plans for a salmon farm, which would have provided eight jobs, foundered because it was felt it could harm tourism
and the environment.
Fyffe emphasises that where management’s priority is people, not an owner’s bottom line, the environment can be a priority.
“People here want to live low-impact lives, they care about that,” she says. “What links us all is the love of Eigg and what happens here – people care really deeply about the place. None of us will make our fortune here but we have lots of other benefits, such as sitting here in the sun surrounded by a beautiful place.” Tasha McVarish, Fyffe’s daughter and the Volunteer Manager for IEHT, gets people stuck in to conservation projects such as
NOVEMBER 2015 SCOTTISH WILDLIFE 27
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