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The island of Læsø with roughly 2000 inhabitants is sited 1,5 hours off the coast of North Western Denmark. The long term tendency regarding population growth has been negative for the island, reflecting a distinct pressure on sustaining livelihoods for the inhabitants of the island. However, in recent years significant projects in particular evolving from a local production of salt have been initiated. These projects constitute a promising potential for revitalizing the local economy. Our analysis is based on the assumption that in order to qualify as rural development, rural economic growth should be based on the utilization of rural resources (van der Ploeg et al., 2008) as well as what others have termed “the otherness” and “left-over-qualities”  which distinguishes rural areas (Anderson, 2000). As such, the projects on Læsø are excellent examples of successful rural innovation and development. Furthermore, the projects illustrate how rural development is embedded in a complex web of social, economical and spatial relations, which exhibits both patterns of local integration across sectors as well as external linkages to relevant markets and actors. Not least it demonstrates how a certain kind of entrepreneurship has been crucial. The patterns of development identified on Læsø corresponds to many of the characteristics attributed to what has been termed ‘the rural eco-economy’  (Kitchen & Marsden, 2009) and points towards new modes of interaction between nature, man and the economy