Kristin Scott, Unit Manager for Northern Isles & North Highland, and Ian Mitchell, Operations Officer for Projects and Rural Development, both from our Golspie office, tell us about their time with SNH.

Greylag geese at Loch Fleet National Nature Reserve. ©Lorne Gill/SNH

Kristin Scott

When did you start working in SNH and what did you do before you joined?
I was there at the time of merger, I’d been working for the Nature Conservancy Council since 1982 when I was taken on as a ‘contract worker’ at the Aviemore office to help implement the 1981 Wildlife & Countryside Act. First task – a Phase 1 survey of the Insh Marshes – what was not to like! By the time SNH was ‘born’ I’d already done 10 years.

What is a typical work day like for you?
Current role is Area Manager Northern Isles & North Highland. Every day is very busy, full of lots of different things, juggling many balls in the air and it involves sometimes difficult decision-making. I come into contact with a wide range of external stakeholders which in itself is interesting and very rewarding. I travel a lot and get to see most of the team on a pretty regular basis which is fantastic, from as far apart as Ullapool to Golspie, and Orkney and Shetland.

The St.Ninians Isle tombolo, Shetland. ©Lorne Gill/SNH

What are you most proud of from your career at SNH?
I’ve been around for a while, done lots of different jobs and worked from several places, mostly in the north. I started in Aviemore as an Assistant Regional Officer (aka Area Officer) and progressed from there. Many challenges along the way, I loved it all. Some of the biggest include overseeing the designation of the River Spey and its tributaries as an SSSI/SAC, something we’d never done on that scale before.

A two year secondment followed to the newly established Cairngorms National Park where I helped implement the access legislation. I came back to SNH and went on to become Area Manager for West Highland for a few years and had the pleasure of working with colleagues new to me, spread out across Skye & Lochalsh, Lochaber and Wester Ross and not forgetting Rum! A few years followed in HQ as Unit Manager Communications – I learned a great deal from a great bunch of staff about how we communicate and the challenges therein for any organisation. I took up my most recent role in early 2015 and haven’t looked back.

Eigg and Rum from Ru Arisaig, Lochaber. ©Lorne Gill/SNH

What’s your best memory from working here?
I’ve always thought SNH is a great place to work and I’ve never come across an organisation with such talented and committed people, who also love a bit of fun. We have had great times outside work too. I must mention the ‘North versus South’ golf match. We used to meet up with Countryside Commission for Scotland colleagues and when a merger was announced with NCC, we played for the aptly named ‘Merger Spoon ‘ – the tattiest, old wooden spoon imaginable! Post-merger we had to devise a new format and ‘North vs South’ was born, with a new trophy known affectionately as ‘The Corporate Driver’, filled I believe with Poteen…..which I didn’t partake, with one babe in arms and one on the way!

Staff enjoying the annual ‘North versus South’ golf match in May 1993 at Newtonmore Golf Course, just one year after merger. from left to right:David Yule (guest),Jim Carruthers,Cliff James,Iain Rennick, Unidentified, Dorothy Macdonald, Peter Hutchinson, Dougie Duguid, Peter Duncan and Kristin with a toddler, and a bump.

Finally, where’s your favourite place in Scotland and why?
Difficult one this. I would have to pick any one of the fabulous beaches of NW Sutherland, maybe Sandwood, just take me there! Or a cycle round Barra, the Hebrides in miniature; or a wander across the wonderful machairs of the Uists in June; but possibly the place of my ancestral roots, Orkney, anywhere on Orkney, just being there and absorbing its landscapes and light; or my new-found love of Shetland….

Ian Mitchell

When did you start working in SNH and what did you do before you joined?  

I  remember the precise date I stared working at SNH – Monday, 21 June 1982 – I was employed more or less continuously on short-term contracts for a few years before I finally got an established and pensionable post in the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC), as it was in those days.   I came there straight from University where I had studied Botany and Ecology at St Andrews followed by a year’s post-graduate study in Finance and Accountancy at Heriot Watt.

What is a typical work day like for you?

I’m rather lucky to have a very varied role covering a wide range of different corporate priority areas. I am an Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) and Improving Public Access case officer. I also cover increasingly important issues like Community Planning in both Sutherland and Caithness, rural development, and project management which includes being SNH’s project manager for our contribution to the HLF funded Flows to the Future Project. This £10.6 million project is being led by the Peatlands Partnership for which I am also the Secretary. Oh, and I am also my Unit’s Communications Champion so get involved in a wide range of Coms issues both internally and externally.

The new lookout tower at Forsinard Flows NNR, part of the Flows to the Future Project. ©Lorne Gill/SNH

So a typical day:

Listen to Farming Today at 5.45 on Radio 4, get up and let the dog (Sam) out. We always have “walkies” no matter what the weather before heading off to work. I’m 25 miles from the office but it’s a very pleasant drive – always changing and lots to see.

Today I have to read some papers for a Community Planning Partnership meeting I’m attending later on in Lairg.  Lots of background reports on local plans to address inequalities.  I think we have been quite successful in raising the profile of how SNH and the environment can contribute to the health and well-being agenda so have now been asked to join a short-term working group looking at developing local opportunities for social prescribing.

Lunch time break and more walkies with Sam usually up the Big Burn in Golspie. This is a magical place to walk in any season and Sam is always happy to run about hunting for sticks and finding mud to jump in.

Then back in the office (more tea of course) and now checking through my current Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) casework. I am responsible for assessing a number of applications and most of my cases have progressed well but there’s always one which causes problems!  After much faffing about to try and resolve an error on the computer systems, and a visit upstairs to ask my Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspections Division colleagues if they know what to do, it turns out it’s apparently just a system error so will have to be passed up the line to get resolved – oh well, at least it was nothing I did!

What are you most proud of from your career at SNH?

My first role back in 1982 was as to survey and draw up habitat maps for all the existing and proposed Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in Sutherland and Caithness. This got me out and about to some amazing wild places and I met loads of interesting people along the way – many of whom I am still good friends with.  My last two border collies came from very good friends who have a farm near Lybster in Caithness and I keep in regular touch with a number of folk have met through work over the years.

I have had a range of different jobs with NCC, NCCS and SNH but always managed to stay based in Golspie, my home territory. There’s a lot to be said for being the weel-kent face, especially when working with rural communities in the north.  My official title now is “Operations Officer – Projects and Rural Development”.

I guess I am proud that my work experience over the years has been useful to me outside work, especially in helping to promote sustainable development in rural areas of Slovenia and Eastern Europe – where I have spent most of my free time, also since 1982.

What’s your best memory from working here?

Lots of good memories over the past 35 years, too many to mention but highlights that come immediately to mind – walking almost the entire coastline of Sutherland and Caithness in 1983 and 1984, navigating a helicopter flight across The Flow Country to take aerial photos of the bogs one sunny January day in 1988.

Old red sandstone sea cliffs near Lyth, Caithness. ©Lorne Gill/SNH

Finally, what’s your favourite place in Scotland and why?

At the top of my ‘garden’ is a small wooded gorge with a 5m waterfall. From the edge of the gorge you can only see native birch woodland, running water and sky. No human sounds or artefacts. It is my idea of heaven.