Vicky Hilton, SISI Volunteer & Comms officer, May 2019
This year Invasive Species Week is being held from 13-17 May, the purpose of the week is to raise awareness across Great Britain about invasive species and their impacts.
Being a project all about invasive species, here at the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative, we’re quite excited about having a whole week of all things invasive and we’d love everyone to share in our enthusiasm and get involved!
There are lots of ways to get involved in Invasive Species Week, you can join in with a practical hands-on volunteering session to remove invasive plants, adopt a mink raft, go on a guided walk, drop in on one of the pop-up stalls or follow our social media posts throughout the week to learn more about invasive species and what you can do to make a difference.
Here’s a list of events we and our partners are running during the week – click on each event to follow the link to our website where there are more details.
- Sat 11 May – Beauly (Nr Inverness). Beauly Invasives Walk & Talk
- Mon 13 May – Forres (Moray). Conservation volunteer evening: Giant hogweed treatment
- Wed 15 May – Brechin (Angus). Conservation volunteer day: Himalayan balsam pulling
- Wed 15 May – Tipperty (Nr Ellon, Aberdeenshire). Conservation volunteer day: Giant hogweed dig
- Wed 15 May – Forres (Moray). Conservation volunteer day: Giant hogweed control
- Wed 15 May – Munlochy (Black Isle). Invasive species pop-up stall at Munro’s garden centre
- Thu 16 May – Dunkeld (Perthshire). Conservation volunteer day: Himalayan balsam pulling
- Fri 17 May – Birnie (Nr Elgin, Moray). Conservation volunteer day: Giant hogweed control
- Sat 18 May – Dingwall (Inverness-shire). Invasive species pop-up stall and Invasive species talk
- Sun 19 May – Fochabers (Moray). Invasive species pop-up stall at Gordon Castle Highland Games & Country Fair.
If you can’t make any of the events, don’t worry you can still stay involved in Invasive Species Week! Follow us on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we’ll be posting lots of information all week about invasive species, what to look out for, what to do about them, alien facts, what things everyone can do to help, gardening tips etc.
Or why not take the initiative and do your bit in your local area? Learn how to identify Himalayan balsam, (download an ID guide here), an invasive plant found growing widely along river banks and head out with a friend (always advisable not to work alone near a river) and go and pull some up! It has a really shallow root system so its easy to pull by hand, put it in a pile away from a path to compost or hang it roots up from a fence/tree (so it doesn’t re-root). It might still be quite small at this time of year but it’s great to pull it and remove it before it flowers and spreads more seeds.
Don’t forget to share how you’ve got involved in Invasive Species Week with us on social media – tag us into your posts and let us see what you’ve been up to!
Invasive Species Week is coordinated by the GB Non Native Species Secretariat. Read more about the week here.
Scottish Invasive Species Initiative 