Volunteering holiday in Scotland, nature & wildlife

Volunteering holiday in Scotland, nature & wildlife

How this holiday makes a difference

Environment

You will have the opportunity to visit local environmental and social projects where you can learn more about the work of these organisations and even get involved in supporting their projects if you wish. On any trip where we work with and/or visit these projects we donate a percentage of our profits to the charity.

When we work with external activity providers, including for any boat trips, we ensure that these businesses take their responsibility to the environment seriously. For example, by following a code of conduct to ensure they don’t cause any harm to the natural environment or disturb the wildlife we are going out to watch. To ensure that you get the most out of your holiday whilst ensuring our activities are as environmentally and socially responsible as possible, we also provide guidance for you on how to behave in sensitive environments or around vulnerable wildlife species. Our company founder, Deborah Benham (PhD), is a marine biologist, animal behaviour expert, ecotourism specialist and accredited tour guide. who ensures that our activities respect the natural environments they take place in and the animals we encounter.

As we are based in the UK it is possible to travel here using a lower carbon option than flying. There is an excellent sleeper train service from London to Inverness and trains and coaches from most large cities. Bringing your own car is also a good option if there is a group of you, allowing a car share. To encourage you to choose one of these lower carbon options we can help you with planning your transport and route. For those of you who do need to fly, we provide an optional offsetting scheme. Once you get here your transport is all supplied by our bio-diesel powered minibus. The bio-diesel we use is locally produced from waste cooking oil. It is much less polluting and has lower emissions than traditional diesel. As its made from waste oil this bio-diesel has no impact on food production.

Lastly, in our behind the scenes work we work hard to support our environment and local community. We have an office policy of reduce, re-use and re-cycle and use a green energy supplier for our power. Internet marketing is used as much as possible to minimise paper wastage. For any materials we do print we use an award winning environmentally friendly printing company based in the next village.

Community

All our scheduled holidays are based in a beautiful Victorian mansion, on the outskirts of Forres, which is run by a small co-operative community whose mission is to " develop, practice and teach skills for sustainable living, in harmony with ourselves, each other and the earth". If other accommodation is used for Tailored Breaks, this is provided by small, local businesses who share our commitment to the environment.

Great food is an important aspect of every holiday and Scotland is famous for its produce. You will experience delicious home cooked meals, using fresh fruit and veg much of which comes from our accommodation provider’s organic garden. We are lucky enough to be surrounded by excellent food producers, including fantastic organic fruit and vegetable farms, a local butcher whose meat is all sourced locally and to a very high welfare standard, an organic bakery, local cheese producers and many more. Its also important that our suppliers are socially responsible and employ local people. For example, many of our dried goods come from a local whole foods shop which is run as a cooperative. Any food waste is composted to help grow next years vegetables.
Our friendly, knowledgeable guides are what make your holiday a truly rich experience. In this part of Scotland we are very lucky as there are a huge number of knowledgeable, passionate people who work with us to deliver your holiday activities. We employ local experts as guides and are always happy for them to suggest new and exciting ideas and activities for our holidays.

This part of Scotland is rich in arts, culture and tradition. We work with local artists and experts to honour this and bring this fascinating heritage into your holidays. You will have opportunities to visit the workshops of local artists and artists and craftspeople and buy souvenirs directly from them.

Engagement with our local community is very important to us and we are involved in grassroots community organisations, like the Transition Town initiative, working on developing local solutions to climate change.

Volunteering holiday in Scotland, nature & wildlife