WHILE Prince Charles gets his Green Living tour under way, his sister, the Princess Royal, will today visit the UK’s greenest isle as part of a flying visit to the Highlands and islands.
Princess Anne will make a 90-minute helicopter visit to Eigg to meet its 95 residents who, since the beginning of the year, have won more than £320,000 thanks to their energy-saving initiatives.
The island just failed to scoop the £1million first prize but banked the runners-up award of £300,000 put up by the Big Green Challenge to encourage communities to go green.
The Eigg team cut emissions by 32% in a year through its use of solar panels and wind and water renewables.
The island’s £1.6million triple generating station using, solar, wind and hydro power, is thought to be the first of its kind and is run by the island's own community-owned power company.
Islanders later went on to win the annual Ashden Awards which secured £20,000 for the Eigg Heritage Trust to invest in future energy projects after slashing its carbon footprint by a third.
Trust chairman John Hutchison will tell the princess that hard work during the past two years had put Eigg firmly on the international stage.
The Princess Royal, accompanied by her husband Vice-Admiral Timothy Laurence, will view the island from the air and later the wind turbines and hydro-electric scheme, before meeting residents who have been associated with the management and operation of the island.
The Princess Royal’s first touchdown was the Highland Wildlife Park, near Kingussie, to open Wolf Wood and later tour the park, taking in the Scottish Wildcats exhibition and being briefed on the Highland Tiger project.
The £300,000 Wolf Wood enclosure is now home to a European grey wolf female, Elara, and a newly-arrived five-year old male, Puika. It is hoped that the new surroundings will encourage the pair to breed.
After leaving the park, the Princess Royal is to visit Knapdale in Mid-Argyll to see another zoo society partnership project – the Scottish Beaver Trial just a few weeks after the first newborn beavers born in the wild since their reintroduction to the UK last year were seen.
At least two kits have been seen in the forest.