Small is Beautiful is a wildlife restoration project on the Isles of Scilly that aims to restore, create and maintain the islands’ natural environment.

Through rewarding sustainable land management, resilient practices, regenerative farming and conservation grazing, the project will help drive the recovery of threatened species and safeguard Scilly’s natural heritage.

Led by a shared vision from Scilly’s farmers and land managers, the project will:
1. Protect, extend and enhance habitats
2. Secure favourable conservation status for protected sites
3. Improve soil health through regenerative grazing across farmland and a small-scale abattoir
4. Safeguard biosecurity against threats such as Dutch elm disease, rats and varroa

The project is possible due to collaboration between core partners the Duchy of Cornwall, Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, Tresco Island and Isles of Scilly National Landscape, plus over 40 participating farmers and growers across 1,400ha.

Small is Beautiful envisions:

To gain a deeper sense of how Small is Beautiful works, and what it means to live and work on Scilly, we spoke with Jaclyn Pearson, the project’s Programme Manager.

Small is Beautiful is a long-term project about bringing together three things: nature recovery, sustainable farming and building resilience for the communities that live and work here on Scilly. It takes a long-term approach so that wildlife and people can thrive together.

It is a very varied role where there is no typical day. I could be on farmers' fields helping with decision making, or at the computer looking at spreadsheets and documents. But a big part of what I do is partnership working and having meetings between stakeholders like Tresco, Wildlife Trust, the farmers, funders, and really bringing people together for the aims of this project.

Success for the next 5 to 10 years looks like community ownership of Small is Beautiful. That means ownership of all that decision making around what's going to happen for nature, what's going to happen for business and community and driving that forward so that everybody can prosper together. Both nature and people always need to work together.

I've been on Scilly for 17 years now and what I love most about it is the sense of community. People assume I might say wildlife because of my background in zoology. Although that's my passion and what first brought me to the islands, it's how people come together to help each other and the biodiversity of the islands that inspires me every single day. This is a resilient place where we all work together to do the greater good.