Spey Catchment Initiative

09/10/2026

We’re hiring: Spey Catchment Engagement Officer 😁

Are you a natural listener who builds trust easily with people from all walks of life?

Do you want to help tackle the climate crisis by playing a key role in an ambitious programme to fund and deliver catchment-scale nature restoration?

We’re looking for someone to help deliver a new programme of engagement with farmers, landowners and land managers across the Spey catchment.

📍 Hybrid – home and/or our Grantown-on-Spey office, with extensive travel across the catchment
💷 £36,500 FTE (£22,000 pro rata), plus pension and travel/expenses allowance
🗓️ Part-time, 3 days a week, 12-month fixed term from January 2027, which we hope to extend.

Full details and how to apply: https://speycatchment.org/were-hiring-spey-catchment-engagement-officer/

Applications close Sunday 1 November 2026.🙌

***Please share with anyone you think might be great for this role***

05/10/2026

Without cold, clean water, there would be no Spey Atlantic salmon and no Speyside whisky.💧

And that's not all. From farmers to wildlife, tourism to our communities, we all rely on healthy, resilient Spey catchment. 🐟🚜

The good news? We're working on it. 💪

Two years ago we joined Chivas Brothers' The River Within partnership. Since then, their support has meant tens of thousands of trees planted to shade our upper tributaries, and kilometres of riverbank fenced to help keep the water clean. 🌱🌳

Without their support, none of this vital work could have been delivered.

With it, we are making the Spey more resilient to climate change. 🌿

This World Habitat Day, join us and our The River Within partners, the Findhorn, Nairn & Lossie Rivers Trust and The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Rivers Charitable Trust, in thanking Chivas Brothers. 🙌

🎥 Watch our film to hear from Roger Knight and Phil and find out more.

08/09/2026

Last week we had the pleasure to show off our incredible Allt Lorgy project to members of the Environmental Funders Network. 😁

It's hard to believe that this stretch of river was once straightened and embanked: a single uniform channel, no pools, no riffles, no shade, and little riparian habitat to support the wealth of species — and the leaf litter — that a healthy river depends on. 😅

Restoration removed the artificial embankments and boulders holding the channel in place, and used engineered log jams to kick-start the river's own recovery. No re-engineered channel, no imposed design — just the conditions for the Allt Lorgy to restore itself.

A decade on, the evidence is hard to argue with:

- Electrofishing surveys show a 400% increase in Atlantic salmon through this stretch 🙌
- Invertebrate monitoring shows an abundant, diverse in-river ecosystem
- The channel now has the pools, riffles and deadwood that define a functioning river system

Sites like this matter beyond their own banks. They're proof that restoration works, and a reminder of what's possible when we give rivers room to recover.

Thank you to the Environmental Funders Network, Rebecca Lewis from Buglife - The Invertebrate Conservation Trust for the invertebrate monitoring demonstration and to Julie Christie for including the Spey Catchment Initiativeive and Allt Lorgy on this year's Scotland Field Trip.

25/06/2026

The perfect place to escape a heatwave - for people and wildlife!😅

This week we had the pleasure of visiting our Coire na Ciste Montane Woodland Project with a group of project partners (full list at the bottom).

First, the snow.❄️

It was remarkable to spend time beside, on, and under remnant snow patches still clinging on in the gully surrounding the Allt na Ciste. The meltwater from these patches plays an essential role at this time of year, providing a steady flow of cold, fresh water that helps counteract the effects of heat and drought on the river below. Sadly, we are seeing less and less snow lasting into summer — but that's a story for another post.

Second, the trees.🌱

This project is part of a wider effort — alongside schemes at Abernethy and Mar Lodge — to restore and reconnect a rare Highland habitat. Many of the 30,000 plants put in the ground last year seem to have survived their first ten months in this extreme and unforgiving environment. The mix includes some specialist species, including dwarf birch, downy willow and whortle leafed willow, that are uniquely adapted to these harsh conditions.

As expected, some trees have been lost to browsing from the various deer and other herbivores that use the corrie, harsh conditions, and the shock of being transplanted from nursery to high altitude — but even some of those affected were showing encouraging signs of life, with buds at the base of stems ready to send up new, hardier growth. And with enough plants established to allow natural regeneration to take over, the habitat will continue to expand long into the future.😁

On the whole, a brilliant visit in great company. Thanks for joining us David Hetherington from the Cairngorms National Park Authority - who funded this project, Ruari Macdonal and Jim Cornfoot from Cairngorm Mountain Resort, Alasdair Mackay from Absolute Forestry LLP who delivered the project and Ed Smith Photography. 🌿

19/06/2026

Update from Clachaig — our trees are in a race against the grass!🌱🌱🌱🌱

Now that the area is fenced and livestock excluded 🐑, the grass has responded fast — in places it's already knee to waist height. On fertile riverside soils like this, that growth quickly becomes a problem for young trees!

Even with tree tubes in place, grass can creep inside and compete with the tree for light, space and moisture — exactly when it needs them most.

Checking inside tubes and clearing grass regularly is essential in the first few years, especially on a site this productive.

It's also a reminder of why we used tubes here in the first place. Without them, these trees would have little chance against this level of competition.

This weeks visit covered an inspection and some hands-on weeding, but with around a third of our tubes needing attention, we'll have contractors back out over the next few weeks to finish the job.

Establishing new woodland doesn't end at planting — it's the years of aftercare that determine whether it succeeds!!!😁

12/06/2026

What an incredible sight!🌳🌳🌳🌳

We're delighted to announce that planting is now complete at our Clachaig riparian woodland project on the upper River Spey!😁

Thousands of trees — alder, birch, aspen, gean, hazel, bird cherry and rowan — have been planted along 1.3 km of riverbank on the Dorbach Burn at Clachaig, within the Cairngorms National Park.

As you can see in the photo, this site already benefits from mature riparian woodland nearby. This planting extends and widens that existing buffer zone — increasing the area of bankside habitat, improving bank stability, and strengthening the woodland corridor along the Spey SAC for wildlife and water quality alike.

You might have noticed there are a lot of tree tubes in our photo.

The reason for this is simple — this area has a high rabbit population, and with no practical way of fully excluding them from the planting area, tubes were the most reliable way of protecting each individual tree. Without them, we'd have very little chance of successful establishment.🌱

We know tree tubes divide opinion — cost, aesthetics, and plastic waste are all legitimate concerns.

So we'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you use tree tubes on your projects? Have you found alternatives that work well?🤔

30/04/2026

Projects like Allt Lorgy continue to inspire and inform people.😁💚

Thousands of people have visited our award winning Allt Lorgy project in the past 14 years - showing how a project's impact often extends beyond the visible ecological and hydrological benefits.🌳

The site is as popular as ever with universities, schools and environmental professionals keen to see how the river has evolved following an early 'stage zero' approach to restoration - allowing the previously dredged and embanked river to reconnect to its floodplain and begin to charter its own course.

Last week a group of students from Queen Mary University of London were out studying the Allt Lorgy for their Fragile Environments module last week and the weather could not have been better!

Dr Hamish Moir from CBEC eco-engineering UK & EuropeLtd, responsible for designing and implementing the restoration work, joined to talk about the restoration process and the increasing dynamism of the river.

With thousands of visitors to date, the Allt Lorgy continues to showcase what can be achieved with minimal targeted intervention and letting the river take care of the rest, inspiring the next generation of river restoration practioners.🥳

Read more about this project here: https://speycatchment.org/projects/allt-lorgy-river-restoration-project/

09/04/2026

We're delighted to welcome Steve Blow to the SCI team as our new Nature Restoration Officer!😁🌿

Steve brings over 35 years of conservation experience to the role, and SCI, most recently as Delivery Manager at Cairngorms Connect — where he supported habitat restoration across 60,000 hectares of the Cairngorms.

In his new role, he will be working to deliver catchment scale riverbank and in-river restoration projects – collaborating with landowners, communities and partners to enhance and restore the health of the River Spey and its tributaries.

Steve knows the Spey catchment well, lives within it, and is ready to get stuck in.

Join us in welcoming Steve to the team.😊

Read more here: https://speycatchment.org/welcoming-steve-to-the-sci-team/

01/04/2026

Tree-nforcements have arrived!🌳🌱😁

Over the past few weeks we have been back out on the River Truim, adding another 2000 trees (alder, rowan and downy birch) to those planted along the river this time last year.

We've increased the number of tubes to protect the young saplings from browsing as traditional fencing options are not viable on this dynamic floodplain. The tubes also create a microclimate increasing survival rates during last summer's drought.

We will continue to monitor the site and will be back to remove the tubes as soon as the trees are ready to survive on their own. As the trees grow, their leaf litter will provide vital nutrients for freshwater invertebrates, providing food for Atlantic salmon, dippers and lots of other aquatic species. 😉

13/03/2026

UPDATE: We have published all of the final reports produced during our Allt Mor Erosion Scar Investigation (please have a read).

These reports are now available to download from our website, ahead of our final consultation event next week.

The event is on Thursday 19th March from 7 – 8:30pm at Talla Nan Ross in Kingussie (please come along!).

The reports, and more information about the investigation, can be found here:

SCI received funding, via the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, to investigate how erosion scars on the Allt Mor, a tributary of the River Spey, contribute to sediment build-up and flooding in Kingussie. With the imminent conclusion of the investigation, we have summarised our approac...