From around 1980 to 1985, the late writer Andro Linklater lived in the Mill House while writing his acclaimed biography of Compton Mackenzie. Bernard Planterose, working for the RSPB, lived on the island with his family in the 1980s, and instituted an ambitious programme of broad-leaved woodland regeneration behind the protection of extensive rabbit fencing. He carried out experimental work on plant populations, plantations and fertilisation of trees. RSPB recorded visiting and breeding birds and surveyed their populations. However, the location of the island and its particular attributes made it difficult for the RSPB to fulfil its aims and remit, and by the middle of 1996 they were looking to dispose of Isle Martin. In May 1999, with the active encouragement of Mrs Goldsmith's daughter, Miss Oriole Goldsmith, the RSPB gifted the island to a trust proposed and established by the communities of Loch Broom and Coigach, The Isle Martin Trust.