Conservation

The aims of the Conservation Service are to uphold the principles of conservation in the widest sense and to provide a practical service in a broad range of projects. In addition it is hoped that the individual enthusiasms of its members will give scope for initiative and diversification. The Service is affiliated to the Scottish Conservation Projects Trust who provide considerable help with equipment.

The Conservation Service is going through something of a revival at the moment with its largest membership for some years. Increasingly they are working with the local community with projects in Forres, the Sanquhar Loch project and the Speyside Way Footpath Network in Archiestown. The aim is to organise at least one project a year that draws on volunteers from the Junior School - for example the Keith and Dufftown Railway restoration or planting trees in community woodland at Drummuir. There is also the continuing struggle to maintain the cliff paths. The Service has also begun to train students in the repair of drystone dykes so that they can gradually restore the wall on the north side of the Estate boundary. Each year members also build and place a substantial number of bird and bat boxes.

There will, it seems, always be too much to do and the principal qualification of new entrants needs to be enthusiasm and the ability of hard work in order to provide a very real Service.