Seasonal Rangers September Update

In the final week of August 2020 Nevis Landscape Partnership (NLP) welcomed four new Seasonal Rangers into Glen Nevis. Lauren, Katie, Rob, and Bianca -thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Emergency Fund- will be out patrolling both Glen Nevis and Ben Nevis on a weekly basis in response to the influx of visitors and the spike of ‘stay-cationers’ to the area this year. A range of conservation tasks and activities have been accomplished by the Rangers already in the first four weeks of work with many more planned for the coming three months.
 
To ensure that no leaf is left unturned the Ranger team have been patrolling key areas throughout Glen Nevis and on Ben Nevis multiple times a week to undergo visitor management monitoring by decreasing the impacts of previously unmanaged tourism. This is done by ensuring all campers are aware of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code (SOAC) through positive engagement, education, and encouragement to follow the principles of Leave No Trace.
 Since these patrols have been introduced over 51 bags of mixed litter (e.g. food and drink wrappers, toilet litter, alcohol based bottles and cans, clothing and camping equipment) have been collected over the course of 27 Ranger Patrols, 21 abandoned tents discovered and removed and over 41 fire sites have been removed and advice was given to campers to encourage them to have smaller fires, light them on shingle beaches if possible and purchase their own firewood in the future instead of removing deadwood from the area.
Sunday 27th September also seen one of our rangers, Lauren, conducting a litter pick up Ben Nevis which included the public! Spare litter picks, bags and gloves were all brought up and nine members of the public took part in the litter pick both up and down the Ben. A great effort from all involved with six bags of litter removed and over 150 people spoken to throughout the day.

Our Rangers have not just been out patrolling, in amongst the litter picks and patrols they have been working on significant conservation tasks including:

• 6 Person days of footpath maintenance carried out on the Ben Nevis tourist path including the repainting of the footpath sign and drain clearing.
• 6 Person days of maintenance work carried out in Future Forest pinewood regeneration Exclosures including multiple days of Bracken Bashing.
• 4 Person days of footpath maintenance on other paths in the Glen including the South side entrance into Steall Falls from Paddy’s Bridge.
• Data and information about the flooding event on September 14th collected and minor path work along the Riverside Path in response to this.
• 2 Person days spent improving the Nevis Landscape Partnership’s tree nursery in preparation for a planned forest regeneration project.
• 1 Person day spent fixing the Stile on the Ben Nevis path.
• 2 Person days creating soil mounds to make camping inaccessible at the Curling Ponds.

In addition, the Rangers have also been working alongside ‘Friends of Nevis’ work party volunteers to provide litter picks along the Glen every Monday as well as working in partnership with the John Muir Trust (JMT) to help clear Steall Gorge and Steall Falls alongside Nathan Berrie ( JMT Conservation Officer) and Ali Austin ( JMT Property Manager).
Though our Rangers have been incredibly busy these past four weeks they have still managed to make time to complete a lot of extra activities weekly such as moth surveys finding exciting species such as ‘Canary Shouldered Thorn’, which are then registered onto the National Moth Recording Scheme, trialing e-bikes from Lochaber Environmental Group (LEG) which has resulted in NLP ordering their very own to help with the Rangers Patrols. As well as the completion of LANTRA tickets and SQA awards on the Isle of Skye; well done to Lauren for achieving both her Chainsaw and Dry-Stone Walling LANTRA tickets and for Bianca achieving her Chainsaw LANTRA ticket and Dry-Stone Walling SQA award.

​
If you would like to be involved and help our Rangers in keeping the community cleaner through litter picks, Nevis Landscape Partnership (NLP) are one of the Community Litter Hubs within the Highlands provided by Keep Scotland Beautiful. This allows anyone to hire out litter picking kit such as: Hi-vis vests, gloves, litter picks and bag hoops from NLP to help tackle local litter issues. If you are interested or need more information please contact: info@nevispartnership.co.uk or call 01397 701088.