The Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group

About Us

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The objectives of the Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group are to stimulate public interest in, and care for, the beauty, history and character of Badenoch & Strathspey; to encourage active conservation of the area through wise use; to encourage high standards of planning and architecture in harmony with the environment.

Registered as a Scottish Charity SC003846.

BSCG Flickr

See our photos on our Flickr.

BSCG Twitter/X

BSCG Twitter/X

Cairngorms NP IUCN Category

IUCN Protected Area Management Categories classify protected areas according to their management objectives. The Cairngorms National Park was designated in 2003 the IUCN Protected Areas Category: 5 - Protected landscape (sustainable development area).

Blaeberry Bumblebee
Blaeberry Bumblebee

Blaeberry Bumblebee

Flowering  willows and Gorse are important for many insects around this time of year, including bees and hoverflies. As Well as flowers of blaeberry (or bilberry) queens of the Mountain or Blaeberry Bumblebee are one of the easiest Bumblebees to distinguish.

An article in Mountain Views the Spring Summer 2025  newsletter of the North East Mountain Trust  (Bumblebee-bagging in the Cairngorms by Annie Ives (Project Officer: Skills for Bees (Scotland)  for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust) features this bumblebee. It describes Bombus monticola as "very distinctive and easy to recognise". Anyone visiting Munros & Corbetts that lack recent records can become involved in contributing records and can find more information at: www.bumblebeeconservation.org/bumblebee-bagging

BSCG has long been involved in recording Bumblebees, including at An Camas Mor, where this queen was recently photographed visiting Gorse flowers, along with other insects, including various solitary bees, hoverflies and colourful Green Hairstreak butterflies.

Global Warming event Thursday 7th December 2023


Dr Dermot Williamson talk and lead a discussion about Global Warming on Thursday, 7 December, 7 – 9 pm in St Bride’s Church, Newtonmore. 

Dr. Dermot Williamson will explain why the world is warming, and why that is existentially important. He will lead a discussion on what we can do to halt global warming. The world since the Industrial Revolution has been warming rapidly, ending the climate stability that allowed us to develop agriculture, build societies and create civilisation. Global warming continues as long as we keep increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere. If it does continue, many parts of the world may become uninhabitable. There would be mass extinctions of animal and plant species. This is an existential threat to many people and to much of nature. This talk and discussion will show why the United Nations’ climate conference COP28 in Dubai is vitally important. COP28 will be a decision point between tackling the climate crisis, or alternatively locking us into a world deteriorating towards an unliveable future.

Talk: Predators & Conservation Management of Capercaillie


lllustrated Talk: New Research on Predators and Conservation Management of Capercaillie in the Cairngorms by Jack Bamber Aberdeen UniversityThursday 19th January at 7.30pm Nethy Bridge Community CentreAll welcome. Free admission.

New parking spaces at Loch Morlich damage native trees


Tessa Jones of the BSCG is interviewed by STV News over plans by the council to create car parking spaces along the side of Loch Morlich, beside Glenmore Forest Park in the CNP.

See The Ferret story for more information: Highland council accused of causing ‘potentially criminal’ damage to native forest.

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