Trees for Life runs week-long Rewilding Weeks, giving volunteers the opportunity to spend a week in the Scottish Highlands - growing and planting trees, monitoring wildlife and supporting other vital work to help restore the Caledonian forest.
Imagine an oak whose girth was just shy of seven meters in diameter, and capable of holding eleven people in its boughs. Just imagine.
On the shores of Loch Tay, you’ll find such a tree.
We recently held our annual guide gathering - an opportunity for us to deepen connections, share inspiring stories and reflect on joyful memories of working with volunteers over the years.
Coordinator, Tom Gilpin, along with Liv and me, both full-time guides, were joined by eight other guides who help lead our volunteer Rewilding Weeks. Among them were long-time guides who’ve been with Trees for Life since its early days, as well as new faces who joined the crew just last autumn.
We chose a central location to make travel easier for all: Tombreck in Aberfeldy, near the National Trust for Scotland’s Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve. This remarkable area is rich in limestone, creating perfect conditions for a wide variety of rare wildflowers, tall herbs, and montane willows. This spring and autumn, we’re running Rewilding Weeks here - part of an expanding retinue of sites, now totalling seven for 2025.
A few guides arrived under their own steam whilst the rest met - true to tradition - outside the train station. On arrival, tea was brewed, tents went up and hugs were liberally thrown around. Old friends and deep connections fuelled by a shared passion and vision - something we endeavour to bring to each Rewilding Week we lead. Little surprise then that we talked long into the evening about the volunteering season ahead: new sites, new guides and new possibilities. We do this because we love it.
Saturday saw us head out to explore the rare willows of Edramucky Burn on the Ben Lawers NNR and witness the soft emergence of spring. Later, we visited a nearby pass to see a beaver-built dam and witnessed how nature is flourishing around this body of water. We had lunch in the sunshine, followed by a peaceful walk through wonderful oak and hazel woodland to the loch’s edge - time to simply be, together, in nature.
That evening, we gathered again - joined by National Trust for Scotland ranger Andy and local resident Audrey - entertained by fiddle, guitar and story songs of the local area. Early on Sunday, we headed out to the reserve to join the Lothian volunteers to remove nearly a kilometre of redundant fencing. The Lothian volunteers are out most weekends, working across a range of sites - willing to work and keen to see a job done. Conservation and nature restoration attracts so many people like this: empowered to make a change, and ready to step forward and physically commit time and energy.
That’s how many of our own journeys began - and the adventure continues. Next year, we’ll meet again, with another 30 Rewilding Weeks behind us, adding to the hundreds already run by Trees for Life. Each one focused on restoring nature and transforming souls.
Thank you to all of our volunteers that make these Rewilding Weeks so special.
