Backing Scotland’s Sea Stewards: Our First Community MPA Grants

12 January 2026

The Protected Areas Foundation has taken another big step this month: we have awarded our first round of Community MPA Grants in Scotland, supporting six groups who are caring for some of the country’s most important coastal and marine protected areas. When we first imagined this fund, we hoped it would put practical, flexible resources directly into the hands of communities who know their seas best, and it is a joy to be able to put funding into practical projects on the ground.

Why these grants matter

Our Community MPA Grants Scotland scheme was designed to discover which communities are active around Scotland’s designated MPAs and to help raise awareness among community groups of the different elements of protected area management, ranging from management and administration to income generation, research, monitoring, education and outreach. The grants offer up to £5,000 per group and sit alongside other support we provide, such as co-developed management tools, helping communities get the help they need for the activities they want to do.

This first round has shown just how much energy and creativity already exists in Scotland’s coastal communities. We received applications from groups working on species monitoring and youth education to volunteer coordination, community outreach and novel habitat restoration approaches, giving us a clear sense of the breadth of community MPA work happening across the country.

Who has been funded

Our six successful applicants span a wide geography and a broad range of activities, reflecting the diversity of Scotland’s seas. Ullapool Sea Savers, for example, are active in the Wester Ross MPA. They will use their grant to cover bookkeeping and independent examination costs; the unglamorous but essential foundations that are hard to secure funding for, but help a small charity keep going. Orkney Skate Trust will dig into species and habitat data from underwater video footage gathered in the Scapa Flow Special Protection Area (SPA), North Orkney SPA and Wyre and Rousay Sounds MPA, building the evidence needed to better protect the iconic yet critically endangered flapper skate and their wider ecosystem.

Several groups are focusing on hands-on engagement and restoration. Moray Ocean Community will combine citizen science, invasive species monitoring (slipper limpet surveys), education and community events to connect local people with their marine environments across multiple protected areasand gather better data on coastal change. Local protected sites include Findhorn Bay Local Nature Reserve, Culbin Sands, Culbin Forest and Findhorn Bay Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Merkinch Local Nature Reserve, Rosemarkie to Shandwick Coast SSSI, the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and the Moray Firth SPA.

Berwickshire Marine Reserve will strengthen volunteer and citizen science programmes, litter monitoring and outreach, helping people feel part of looking after their local protected areas, which include St Abbs to Fast Castle SPA, Berwickshire Coast Intertidal SSSI, St Abbs to Fast Castle SSSI, Berwickshire and North Northumberland Coast SAC, St Abbs to Fast Castle SAC and Petticowick to St Abbs Harbour and St Abbs Head Geological Conservation Review sites.

The Coastal Communities Network (CCN) will use its grant to provide support as requested by coastal community groups across Scotland and continue its advocacy for community-led marine management. Members of CCN are active, for example, at the Fair Isle Demonstration and Research MPA, Loch Sunart to the Sound of Jura MPA, South Arran MPA, Wester Ross MPA and the Sea of the Hebrides MPA. Finally Greener Orkney will provide community training and undertake litter monitoring in the Scapa Flow SPA, to OSPAR* standards. Their ambition is to address a key national gap in knowledge for protected area management, by paving the way for the first OSPAR designated litter monitoring site in the Scottish Islands.

The impact we hope to see

Taken together, these grants will support a wide spectrum of ambitious MPA management tasks across a wide spectrum of Scotland’s many MPAs – from administration and equipment purchases through to ecological analysis, surveys, education programmes and community training, convening and support. Our hope is that this combination of practical support and learning will not only help each group progress its own goals, but also build a stronger, more connected network of community MPA practitioners who can inspire and help one another.

Over the coming year we will be checking in with each grantee, sharing stories from their projects and reflecting together on what this first round has taught us. For us, this marks an important moment: moving from talking about community-led MPA management to directly helping to resource some of Scotland’s determined and dedicated coastal community groups who are actively caring for our seas.

OSPAR is the Regional Seas Convention for the North-east Atlantic, to which the UK is a signatory.