The James Hutton Institute (Aberdeen)
Hello everyone. I’m Richard and I am the most northerly of the Natural Network Trainees. I am based up at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen with the North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership. My traineeship will mainly focus on the beautiful town of Ellon, which already has loads of fantastic greenspace and to top it all off the river Ythan runs right through the town centre. I will be working with the NE Scotland Biodiversity Partnership to develop a pilot green network project, the main aim being to help local communities to enhance and enjoy their greenspace. I’m really looking forward to working on this project and I can’t wait to see how the next 12 months will pan out. I’ll also be working on a few of the projects that are already ongoing with the partnership.
How did I get to this point in my life? Conservation and the outdoors has always been a big passion of mine and after finishing university I decided to volunteer for the NationalTrust for Scotland and the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project to gain more experience. After a year and a half of volunteering I was lucky enough to get a job as a seasonal ranger on the Isle of Arran. I spent two seasons as a ranger for the NTS Brodick Country Park and Goatfell Properties, enjoying the island life and having the pleasure of spending a lot of time up in the hills of Arran. I then decided that I wanted to go back to university and study an MSc in Ecology and Environmental Sustainability. After 12 months of a challenging but rewarding university course I’m now starting what is sure to be another challenging but rewarding 12 months.
So far I’ve been getting to know a bit more about the town of Ellon and meeting lots of new people. I have also been assisting with some great events. On Wednesday we had a stall at the State of Nature Conference in Edinburgh promoting Citizen Science and the camera trapping project developed by Rose Toney the LBAP coordinator for North East Scotland Biodiversity Partnership, check out the facebook page for lots of cool videos. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to talk about in my next blog and I look forward to sharing it with you all.