Quinag and Nevis Junior Rangers step out into their local wild places

Junior Ranger Project Officer Sarah McNeill welcomes two groups of young people - from Lochaber High School near Nevis and Ullapool High School near Quinag - to our new year-long Junior Ranger Programme.

We are delighted to be working with 18 passionate and motivated teenagers over the course of their academic year, encouraging them to connect with and make a positive difference to their local wild places.

At the end of August, we invited our new Quinag Junior Rangers to spend a morning exploring an off-grid forest base in Leckmelm Wood, near Ullapool.

Emma Planterose Magenta, gave us a brief history of the development of Leckmelm Wood, introducing us to some of the cutest local residents (see above). We then increased our skills and knowledge of food growing and foraging as we picked some freshly grown toppings for our homemade pizzas, cooked on the outdoor pizza oven (see below).

Meanwhile, near Fort William, our new Nevis Junior Rangers were invited to follow the River Nevis to the foot of the Ben Nevis mountain path (see photo at the top of the page). 

As we walked along, we identified and recorded a number of butterfly and bee species in a meadow flourishing with Devil’s-bit scabious (see above) and completed some freshwater invertebrate identification surveys and chemical river quality tests (see below).

Our plan is to continue to deliver sessions and activities that will consider the local environment, the individual participant's interests and needs, partnership opportunities and other experiences that may arise from the young people’s interactions with people and place.

We look forward to an exciting, jam-packed year ahead together!

• Find out more about our Junior Ranger programme and how you can support it and similar work through donating to the Wild Action Fund.

• The Junior Ranger programme has been made possible with funding from ALA Green and support from partners such as Nevis Landscape Partnership, Coigach & Assynt Living Landscape Partnership and the Woodland Trust.