The scheme in southern Scotland has seen bird numbers rise from just a handful to nearly 40.
"We are in year five of a six-year project at the moment," she said.
"The birds are doing really, really well - there are more golden eagles in the south of Scotland than we have seen for nearly 300 years which is brilliant.""It is still early days from a golden eagle point of view because they are a very long-living bird," she said. "They take nearly five years to mature to breeding so, even though we have been going for five years we haven't quite had that breeding success yet."Fingers crossed next year we'll start to see those first steps."
She said that financial assistance from the National Lottery had been essential for the scheme but it had still been a shock to take the honour. "It was quite a big surprise to get nominated and to be a finalist - so to win Scottish project of the year is absolutely fantastic," she said.
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