Mat Anderson from the BCC crew drops in on a static abseil to tell us what’s up, & how their getting down with Glenan…..
Throughout 2025, and now into 2026, Big Canopy Campout has been working alongside Friends of Glenan Wood, fundraising, camping out and raising awareness of Scotland’s native rainforest.
It was an incredible experience to visit the forest for the first time; every rock and tree covered with lichens, and an array of plants covering the forest floor.
Board members Robin and Iain walked us through the woods to the ruins of Glenan Village, telling us about the unique ecology here, as well as the history of human activity, most notably the significance of the rainforest continuing to thrive alongside the community of people who once made a home here.
During our next visit we met with Rhyddian, the dedicated ranger employed by Friends of Glenan Wood, who spoke further to this, explaining that a core aspect of the work here is to continue this tradition of coexistence between the local community and the rainforest. Much of the work Rhyddian is involved with is to do with conservation-volunteering & community engagement , but what sets his initiatives apart is the inspiring and imaginative ways in which he brings the local community together in tandem with the work being carried out.
“As the community ranger, I see every day how this forest connects people with both natural and cultural heritage. Alongside internationally significant native habitats, our developing gazetteer is revealing many places of cultural importance, including a former fishing and farming settlement and a Bronze Age cairn.
This heritage matters deeply to local residents, families with ancestral ties, volunteers and learners. It lives not only in the landscape but in the oral histories, stewardship traditions and shared restoration work that strengthens biodiversity, wellbeing, skills and our collective sense of place.”
[Rhyddian]
Giving Glenan a leg up…
Our fundraising throughout 2025 was focused on helping Friends of Glenan Wood with their conservation and community engagement initiative, and our first phase of this was to provide funds for a specially made deer oven, which could then be used at gatherings and events in the forest. This deer oven was designed and built locally by a local man of steel by the name of George Semple, and made ready for our 2025 BCC Campout event.
The ethos behind the deer oven was to merge together the deer management work with community engagement, turning the culling of deer into something wholesome which can subsequently bring the community together to enjoy food and the ritual of cooking right in the heart of Glenan Wood itself.
The week before the campout, alongside music, laughter and delivering other public events, the oven was dug into the ground. During the campout itself, the fire was lit, prepared and brought up to heat, the deer roasted in the earth for hours before being shared amongst a mixture of community members and visitors who had come along for the event. It was the first of our annual campout events to be hosted by our chosen cause for the year, and it was inspiring to see first-hand the incredible culture that has developed once more in Glenan Wood.
A peopled landscape…
Glenan is a place which has a history of human habitation, whilst also a history of ecological abundance. Geographically, the West of Scotland is well suited to sustain rainforest environments, and historically the majority of the coastline would have been forested as abundantly as Glenan is today, but through human interventions these environments had reduced down to fragments of rainforest, protected now by continuous conservation efforts and various forms of fundraising.
This state of affairs shares similarities with the other causes which we have supported over the past 5 years. The Siekopai in the Ecuadorian Amazon are currently on the frontlines of mass deforestation, their land kept ecologically healthy by the continued efforts of the community there, when so many neighbouring villages have been overcome by external pressures and seen their land purchased by corporations and stripped of its natural beauty.
The Bob Brown Foundation, too, which fights tirelessly to protect Tasmania’s remaining rainforest, has been created as a reaction to the continued destruction of the natural world happening on their doorstep. What is apparent when looking at the similarities between Scotland, Ecuador and Tasmania, is that threats against ecologically healthy areas of rainforest still persist, and that the community presence in these places must be considered if meaningful, long-term conservation work is to be carried out into the future. Further to the money raised for Friends of Glenan Wood’s deer oven, we were able to raise a further £5,000 to bolster the work being done by Rhyddian and the local community.
Onwards & Upwards…
We are excited to be fundraising for Glenan Wood once again this year, and given the range of initiatives which Rhyddian and the community have in the works we are looking forward to seeing how 2026 unfolds.
Throughout the year, we will be raising funds through sales of BCC and SIP clothing, with designs created especially for Friends of Glenan Wood, and the sale of DMM climbing equipment in limited edition BCC colours. While work is underway raising funds, we will also be gearing up for our annual Big Canopy Campout Event on the weekend of the 24th-26th July.
We are delighted to announce that Friends of Glenan Wood are planning to once again host their very own campout. They will be one of many campouts happening throughout the world, helping to make our 2026 event bigger and better than before, creating a collective international voice for the recognition and protection of our nature and native woodlands.
You can view the BCC Campout world map here.
