Rangering at the Trust

Transcript

One speaker: Lynne Mackenzie, Ranger, North East Ranger Service

The National Trust for Scotland rangers are brilliant. They are a passionate group of people. They are expert practitioners in their field and their core aims are to conserve our nature and landscapes, and also share that with our visitors, our communities and our members.

I want to be a ranger because I care a huge amount about nature and our environment, and from a very young age understood that we have a big part to play in caring for it. I like being outdoors and active, being practical, and also meeting different people and sharing what we're caring for.

There's absolutely no such thing as an average day for a ranger. We can be outside doing habitat work; we can be surveying birds, butterflies, trees; we can be taking a school group out and sharing with them all our amazing nature and landscapes as well. It's different every day, but that's what makes it so special.

You need to have a passion; you need to have a drive for this. There's going to be really, really tough days when you're out in the horizontal rain just trying to get something fixed.

You also need to build up your practical skills and your field skills as well, so you need to have your ID skills up to scratch for species identification. You need to understand ecology, environmental protection, and you also need to be passionate about your places. You need to learn about them as well.

You also need to want to share it with people; that's a core part of rangering. It's part of our rangering policy, from NatureScot, from the government. It's about connecting people with our places and nature.

Our communities today, they want to be involved. They want to be part of making a change, and I think that's really promising.

National Trust for Scotland rangers are one of many teams conserving and sharing our nature and landscapes. It is our rangers that you'll find across all  of the Trust countryside, from islands to mountain tops, seabird cliffs and coasts, to woodlands to castle estates and battlefields, caring for and sharing these special places.

Our rangers bring to the Trust a diverse and vital set of skills and experiences to look after the heritage in the Trust's care. They are passionate about their vocation, dedicated to the nature, landscapes, heritage and communities of Trust places.