A year of our Partnership for Nature 

In July 2025, we embarked on our Partnership for Nature with Conservation Collective; an opportunity for our guests to contribute directly to the restoration and conservation of some of our most beloved destinations, led by local experts with unparalleled understanding of the environmental, socio-economic and political realities of each place. We didn’t know how much we would raise, so we decided to commit initially to just one project to ensure quality and maximum impact of guest donations (quality over quantity), and then we’d expand to new destinations when the time was right.

After several months of reviewing projects ahead of the partnership launch, we’d landed on an exciting, scalable concept in Sri Lanka, led by Conservation Collective’s local partner, Lanka Environment Fund. And so became ‘Project Hyacinthesis’.

An innocent ornament causing decades of challenge

If you'd told me a few years ago that an invasive weed would become the centrepiece of one of the most hopeful conservation initiatives I’d heard of (and a major part of my life), I'd have raised an eyebrow. Water hyacinth is a strange, contradictory thing; beautiful to look at but devastating to live alongside. Native to South America, it was naively introduced as an ornamental plant by the British Governors wife in Sri Lanka in the early 1900s, and has since spread through the country’s lakes, ponds and streams at speed. It chokes oxygen from the water, blocks the light other plants need, and turns wetlands that Asian elephants, leopards, sloth bears and migratory birds depend on into stagnant, breeding grounds for disease. Biodiversity, fisheries, farmers and entire communities suffer as a result.

And yet, that same relentless growth is what makes water hyacinth so useful, if you know what to do with it. It’s been proven across Asia and part of Africa that it can be woven into furniture and giftware, turned into paper, fertiliser, animal feed, bioenergy, and even bioplastics. That's the premise Project Hyacinthesis was built on: don't just remove the problem (total eradication is almost impossible) but build an economy around it.

Innovation in conservation means creating solutions to environmental problems which engage the whole ecosystem, and that includes the human population. For conservation to really work, people must benefit in equal measure to the fauna and flora. Project Hyacinthesis is a remarkable demonstration of that approach; taking an environmental challenge (the rapid proliferation of water hyacinth), turning it into an economic opportunity (using the raw material to create creative and renewable industries, predominantly led by women) and restoring equilibrium in natures havens (benefitting wildlife, reducing pollution and improving living and working conditions for local people). 

This month the project received a ‘One to Watch’ commendation from the International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT). The judge's citation offers the perfect summary of the importance of this project and its approach: “Restoration and economic regeneration are not treated as separate goals – they are the same process. This is what distinguishes the initiative within the regenerative tourism framework; it offers guests not a carbon offset or a generic donation, but a tangible, traceable stake in the recovery of a specific place. The waterways being restored are the same ones guests travel to see. The communities gaining new livelihoods are the same ones whose knowledge and hospitality shape the guest experience.”

From scoping study to workshop delivery 

The project team in Sri Lanka spent the first few months researching, compiling and project planning with the utmost diligence (proven in the resulting 219-page scoping study!). Research across Colombo, Hambantota, Jaffna and Kurunegala identified the artisans, vendors and community groups already working with hyacinth on a small scale and asked what they'd need to turn that work into something financially sustainable, more refined and nationally/internationally scalable. Over 50 businesses then applied to become part of the first cohort, with six small enterprises selected: Ima Water Hyacinth, Centre for Alternate Technology, SustainU, Kumari Athkam, JJ Products and Praedeepa Eco Products.

Each has received an individual diagnostic report and are working through a professionally led business management curriculum, focusing on financial literacy and cash flow, supply chain design, production planning, marketing and brand storytelling, product quality and circularity. Between May and June, the Good Life X team (facilitator project partners) ran four training workshops, on supply chains, product design with the City School of Architecture, environmental sustainability with Panda Pharmacy organic farm, and digital finance with retail exposure at four established Sri Lankan brands. Additionally, to the skills uplift, the enterprises have received seed funding of up to LKR 500,000 (£1200) to purchase required new technology (sewing machines, printers, laptops), additional resources and support their marketing. 

Alongside the enterprise accelerator, Scott Dunn's support has funded crucial invasive species removal in Horton Plains and Wasgamuwa National Park, working with the Federation of Environmental Organisations (FEO) to scale existing operations. Progress had been remarkable, with gorse, water hyacinth and giant salvinia driven down to minimal levels by the end of 2025. Then Cyclone Ditwah struck in December 2025, funding was redirected to humanitarian relief, maintenance stopped, and the invasive species began to creep back. Scott Dunn’s funding was mobilised to get back on top of the removal work and continue it until the pre-existing funding avenues could resume, with an expectation that our donation will support clearing 180 hectares of gorse from Horton Plains and four water bodies in Wasgamuwa by May 2027.

Shortly after removal work resumed, elephants were seen returning to Wasgamuwa – on the day the LEF and Scott Dunn teams first met in person in London. A rewarding and somewhat spiritual affirmation that this collaboration is making a real difference to wild places.

A night at the Everyman, and a night in Maradana 

One of the moments I'll keep coming back to from this year was sitting on a stage at the Everyman Cinema in London, alongside the inspirational Vinod Malwatte from LEF (Executive Director) and Ben Goldsmith (Founder of Conservation Collective), watching the room go quiet as the new documentary, Harnessing the Power of Water Hyacinth: A Sri Lankan Story, played publicly for the first time. Thirty loyal Scott Dunn guests and several supporters of CC and LEF were in the audience; most knew very little of what they were coming to learn about but had an interest in Sri Lanka or curiosity about ‘sustainability’.

After the film and panel Q&A, an organic and animated conversation unfolded, led by the guests, exploring the ways in which every person could offer the project support, not financially but through unexpected skills, knowledge and connections. One person worked in fashion and design, one in renewable energy, one as a journalist and on and on. It highlighted so clearly that the way to successfully grow this kind of project isn’t solely through funding, but through entrepreneurship, community and collaboration – with opportunities appearing during every conversation. I think that’s what excites me most; we have no idea where this project could be in another 12-months and that’s due to its holistic nature and the adaptability and innovation of the project leads.

Then, just a few weeks ago, that same film screened in Sri Lanka itself, at a community event in Maradana, with the people whose stories it tells in the room to see it. Two very different audiences, thousands of miles apart, moved by the proof that an ecological threat can become an economic opportunity, if you let the people closest to the problem lead the solutions and share their skills far and wide. 

What's next 

The first cohort graduates from the Sri Lanka Accelerator this September. A new Project Hyacinthesis Coordinator has joined LEF to manage these relationships day to day and support them in putting their new skills and knowledge into practice. A second, more ambitious cohort is already being planned, built for businesses working at industrial scale, which will mean continuing to navigate Sri Lanka's 1909 Water Hyacinth Ordinance and the essential work of policy change. 

By early 2027, we hope to bring our guests the opportunity to visit and meet the Cohort 1 enterprises in person, during their trips to Sri Lanka. Have you been dreaming about visiting the Teardrop Isle? We can’t wait to start connecting you more deeply with the people and beautiful products at the heart of Project Hyacinthesis, so watch this space! 

Beyond Sri Lanka – expanding to Greece

As of this July, our guests have helped raise over £120,000 for the restoration and preservation of the natural world through the expertise of local grassroots organisations. 

Due to this generosity, we’ve raised almost double what we’d anticipated in year one. Once we realised this was the case, Conservation Collective began building the pot for a second project together.

We’re excited to have now begun work with the Cyclades Preservation Fund, supporting the expansion of Aegean Wildlife Care – an information and rescue network for injured and stranded wildlife in the Cyclades, built with four local partners: Alkyone Aegean Wildlife Hospital, Naxos Wildlife Protection, MOm and ARION. Cases of injured and stranded animals are increasing across the Mediterranean, driven by habitat loss, underwater noise and growing vessel traffic in sensitive marine zones, and for vulnerable species like beaked whales and sea turtles, how quickly they’re found and treated can decide whether they survive. 

The trouble is that the people most likely to come across them first – lifeguards, coastal and local authorities, residents – rarely have the training to know what to do. The aim is simple; an information and rescue network on first aid and rehabilitation that professionals, volunteers and residents across the Cyclades, and wider Aegean, can actually use. It's already been running successfully across several islands, and 2026 is about building on that track record rather than starting from scratch. 

Between now and Christmas the training programme will expand into Paros and Naxos, with Crete, Kos and Kythnos following in 2027. On each new island, local authorities will be equipped with rescue and rehabilitation toolkits, including transport boxes for injured animals, and residents will be invited into citizen-science and wildlife-spotting activities that help monitor local biodiversity too. It's the same instinct that shaped Project Hyacinthesis; build local capacity and trusted local partnerships first, and the rest follows.