Conservation volunteering in Scotland
How this holiday makes a difference
Environment
As an environmental charity, the sole purpose of our Conservation Holidays is to carry out practical forest conservation. We have been working for over 20 years to actively restore the Caledonian Forest and protect it's many associated flora and fauna species. To date we have planted over 950,000 trees, fostered the growth of many thousand more by erecting stock fencing and haveincreased the safe movement of wildlife by removing 100s of kilometres of redundant fencing.
Every volunteer who books a place on one of our Conservation Holidays can be safe in the knowledge that the work they are doing now will have a lasting impact on the environment for many years to come. We work in conjunction with other conservation bodies such as the RSPB, National Trust for Scotland and Forestry Commission Scotland to carry out work on their land, in line with their management plans.
As you might expect, we have a strong environmental policy. The food we provide on the holidays is vegetarian and largely organic. All fruit and vegetable scraps are composted for use in our own tree nursery. Our office is based in an eco-village that produces it’s own wind-generated electricity and we use energy efficient lighting and heating. We recycle as much of our office and Conservation Holiday waste as possible, use double -sided printing techniques and reuse envelopes. Environmentally friendly inks are used for all our printed materials. The vast majority of our staff either walk or cycle to work!
Volunteers are encouraged to travel by public transport, with the pick up and drop off point for all Conservation Holidays being Inverness train station. All volunteers receive travel information when they make their booking, to ensure they are travelling in the most environmentally friendly and cost effective way. If volunteers do bring their own transport, they are encouraged to lift share where possible. A website has been set up to allow people travelling on the same dates to make contact with each other in order to do this.
Groups contain no more than ten volunteers, in order to ensure that the positive impact of the work undertaken is maximised, whilst the group's impact on the environment is minimised.
Wednesday is a ‘day-off’ for Conservation Holiday volunteers, which they can spend doing as they choose. The leaders provide suggestions of locations and amenities to visit, which often have direct or indirect benefits to the environment and local community. The leaders also ensure that all volunteers are aware of how to minimise their impact on wildlife and the environment, whilst either on a workday or a day off.
Community
All of our Conservation Holidays take place within our 900 sq. mile target area and are based at a variety of work locations. Every year, a significant amount of money goes directly back in to local communities as a result of our holidays. We rent local accommodation for the groups, where applicable, buy supplies from local shops and encourage volunteers to visit local amenities of their day off. In 2009, just under £30,000 was spent this way.
Because of the practical aspect of the holidays, we are actively improving the local countryside. For an area that relies heavily on it's scenery to bring in the tourist trade, our Conservation Holidays are bringing long term benefits.
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