Out of the office and into nature!

Our volunteer groups have been getting out and about in Cumbernauld, dabbling in all sorts of practical conservation activities: scything meadows, removing nasty invasive plants and shortly we’ll be planting native saplings too. Our volunteers love being outdoors and the pull to nature is one of the top reasons they give us their time. We want to extend this feeling to local communities and businesses, and we seem to have done just that with our recent corporate volunteer groups from Scottish Power. We have been taking groups of Scottish Power employees out of their workspaces and into the outdoors for the day; helping us tackle some large-scale tasks.

Our first group came out to Ravenswood, where they helped clean up the local school’s outdoor play area by removing bags of litter – 12 in total! The group also helped in the ongoing battle against birch regeneration on the Ravenswood bog. These birch trees sook all the water out of the bog – drying it out and releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Our volunteers managed to fell a lot of the young trees from the site, improving the water retention in the bog.

Another group from Scottish Power came out with us to a meadow at St Maurice’s pond. They got stuck into some important work for the season: using scythes to cut and lift the meadow’s tall grass. By doing this we are increasing the chance for wildflowers establishing in the area – creating essential nectar resources for local wildlife such as butterflies, bees and hoverflies.

The groups enjoyed getting out into these stunning environments; experiencing them from a new perspective while aiding conservation efforts in the local community. In the future we hope to expand our partnership to other sites and get more people out of the office and into nature!