Everyone at the Forth Rivers Trust would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes! 🎄🎅 Huge thank you to everyone who has supported us in and around the Forth catchment this year. We couldn't achieve what we do without your support!

2 weeks left to apply to this vacancy! forthriverstrust.org/hiring-heado...

Last weekend to support our fundraiser for the Fish in the Classroom project! 🐟 Can you give the gift of outdoor learning this Christmas? Donate today at forthriverstrust.org/fish-in-the-... All donations must be made through our crowdfunder page by the 19th December.

🌿 Artist Opportunity: Join a Holistic Restoration Project Forth Rivers Trust is bringing an artist onboard for Forth Landscape Connections, a project exploring how people across the Forth Catchment relate & connect to this landscape & how creative storytelling can support collaborative restoration.

Today was the Trust's annual Health & Safety refresher training and the office was busy with discussion! Topics covered included the importance of water safety, lone working practices, dynamic risk assessments, COSHH & more - but staff were kept well fuelled with coffee and snacks.☕

Photos from a tree-maintenance session at Deaf Knowe last week! Despite a chilly start, we checked around 1,000 trees ❄ Great effort! We also found plastic balls in-river 😔 luckily a volunteer is cleaning them, hoping to donate to a charity that may send them to Ukraine.

We’re hiring a Head of Consultancy! 💼 Full-time | £42k | Hybrid, 12-month FTC 📅 Apply by 31 Dec 📍 Flexible working | 32 days leave | 9% pension Lead impactful work directly supporting river restoration across the Forth. Details & apply👉 forthriverstrust.org/hiring-heado... #GreenJobs

Head of Consultancy with @ForthRiversTrust.bsky.social full time for 12 months, home based position with regular travel across the Forth catchment c-js.uk/4rnCApi

Help pupils raise trout, protect rivers, and learn for life. 🐟 Fish in the Class offers kids hands-on learning and experiences they can't get from textbooks, agreed Jean, a deputy head from West Lothian, after Fish in the Class ran at her school. Can you help us run Fish in the Class 2026?

🌾 There’s still time to join our Leven Farmer Network meeting this Wednesday! 📍 Loch Leven Brewery, Nov 12 Connect with farmers, land managers & landowners in the Leven catchment. Learn how the farmer-led network can support you, from soil health, water management, grazing, crop rotations & more.

Since 2009, Fish in the Class has helped pupils across the Forth discover the magic of their local rivers. We need your help to keep it going in 2026! Donate by 19 Dec 2025 to support pupils learning about the natural world: forthriverstrust.org/fitc-crowdfu... #FishInTheClass #LoveYourLocalRiver

Farmers, land managers, & landowners of the Leven catchment: join our farmer & land manager network. The network is an opportunity share experiences, learn from each other, & explore practical topics like soil health, water management, crop rotations, fertiliser use, grazing techniques & more.

Clara attended an inspiring few days at the Blue Earth Summit, where she led a workshop on financing holistic landscape-scale restoration together with Penelope and Ellie from Commonland, using the Forth Catchment as a case study!

Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) is one of our more persistent INNS: spreading fast and weakening riverbanks when it dies back in winter. Our team has been out across the Almond and Devon catchments surveying last year’s treatment sites and tracking down new hotspots.

The MERLIN Symposium brought together diverse voices from across sectors to share four years of learning from the Forth Catchment. Check @forthriverstrust.bsky.social's post on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/posts/forth-... 🔗 Forth Catchment case study (MERLIN CS17): project-merlin.eu/cs-portal/ca...

🌾At FRT, we support farmers, growers, & producers of the catchment.Our projects like Leven LENs help land managers adopt sustainable practices, & we love celebrating amazing food grown locally! This Sunday, join us for a free “Lunch from the Land”: tickettailor.com/events/forthriverstrust/1898715

How is your local river looking? 🐟 Spotted any wildlife or pollution? ☀️ Low water level after the dry summer? 💧 What colour is the water? How fast is it flowing? Record all this (and more) in the free Big River Watch app between the 19th and 25th of September. 👉 theriverstrust.org/take-action/...

Our latest newsletter is out! Catch up with the newest updates from a busy 2025 summer... see the latest edition of our newsletter at tinyurl.com/FRTSummerNew...

The Leven Catchment Collective has launched!🌾 A new platform to support locally led action at the crossroads of healthy ecosystems, community wellbeing and resilient businesses.

On Tuesday last week FRT & LENs Co co-hosted an event to welcome visitors from an international climate delegation as they tour Scotland and prepare for the upcoming COP 30. At the event we showcased the Leven LENs project and took a closer look at the place-specific context of this LENs region...

📢 Don’t miss tomorrow’s free webinar on the new Community Springboard – a programme supporting Leven Catchment groups with nature restoration, wellbeing & community connection. 📅 Tue 27 Aug, 6–7PM 📍 Online – register: www.tickettailor.com/events/forth...

Willow spilling, 5 months on ⏩ Back in March, we worked with @forthriverstrust.bsky.social to stabilise sections of the White Burn that runs through #Blaeberry Wood 🌊 Look at the growth already. Job well done - the wonders of willow! 🍃

🌱 Calling land managers, farmers & land-based businesses in the Lothian Esk Catchment! Farmer & land manager meet up 🗓️ Wed 3rd Sept 📍 Penicuik Town Hall ⏰ 7–8:30pm Help shape a route map for a more climate & nature resilient future for the Lothian Esks. #NatureBasedSolutions #LothianEsks #Penicuik

🚨 Invasive species alert: 1st pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) reports in Scotland for 2025. Confirmed on Dee, Spey, Kyle of Sutherland; caught lower Tweed & River Thurso → tinyurl.com/y8ac3vph Originally from the Pacific, they follow a 2-year lifecycle. fms.scot/pink-salmon-in-scotland/

We’ve made great strides this season clearing Himalayan Balsam from the River Devon at Muckhart Community Woodland! Huge thanks to our dedicated volunteers and to @tcvnational.bsky.social's EPIC Ochils groups for their amazing support. 💪🌱 #BalsamPull #RiverRestoration

🌿 Stenhouse Habitat Survey🌼 Charlotte and Niall were out surveying the habitats around Stenhouse Reservoir last week and came across some beautiful species!

Today, we bid a fond farewell to Jonathan Louis, who is moving on to pastures new after 12 years with Forth Rivers Trust. To say he has had a positive impact on the team is an understatement and he will surely be missed, though we wish him all the best for his next steps.

Tonight! Community INNS workshop at The Dave King Partnership Centre (East Calder) from 7-8.30pm. Map INNS, learn about how to tackle them, & enjoy hot drinks and biscuits. See you there! Funded by West Lothian Council thanks to ScotGov's Nature Restoration Fund, managed by @naturescot.bsky.social

Still time to join our 'balsam bashing' session this Thursday in Almondell & Calderwood Country Park from 10.30am-2pm. Help remove invasive non-native Himalayan Balsam to prevent its spread...it's satisfying, good for local biodiversity, & we’ll support you with hot drinks and biscuits!

Staff Niall and Mario attended a peatland restoration course up North last week, run by Crichton Carbon Centre. All aspects of the project design process were discussed, including different types of erosion features, how to map them using GIS, and the implementations needed to stabilise them.

🌿DEVON BALSAM BASHING 2025🌿 Help control invasive Himalayan balsam along the River Devon with us... weekly volunteer sessions kick off Wed 16 July, 10am at Muckhart Woods.📍 maps.app.goo.gl/ztCiRhVTgu9K... Wear long sleeves/trousers + bring lunch & water. #VolunteerWithUs #BalsamBashing #RiverDevon

Check out our podcast... As part of the exciting LENs launch in Scotland this week, Forth Rivers Trust are releasing our brand new podcast - The Sustainable Catchment Podcast!

🔬 Loch Leven Matters - Science Evening Great Friday night in Kinross helping with @ukceh.bsky.social's science evening! After tasty food from Loch Leven’s Larder, we headed to Greens Burn to demo electrofishing. #LochLevenMatters #CommunityLearning #Electrofishing #SalmoTrutta #LoveYourLocalRiver

🌿Trimmer and brushcutter training day 2🌿 Day 2 of the team's training consisted of some practice with the trimmers and trying different trimmer machines. It was fantastic getting to learn this new skill and we look forward to putting it into practice!

6 of the Trust team were in a sunny Stirling today for the first day of their Lantra trimmer and brushcutter training. We ran over health and safety considerations and basic machinery maintenance...

🌍 It’s #WorldEnvironmentDay! This year’s theme: Beat Plastic Pollution. Plastic dumped in streets ends up in our rivers and seas, choking wildlife & polluting places we all value. In the Forth catchment, we see this impact every day eg. found in a river in 2018, a plastic Wispa wrapper & a wet wipe.

@forthriverstrust.bsky.social‬ is also looking for an Ecologist. Full-time (40 hours/week), fixed-term for 12 months (possible extension). Location: Hybrid - home working and Forth Rivers Trust office (Edinburgh), with regular travel across the Forth catchment c-js.uk/4jyW850

Sustainable Land Management Advisor with @forthriverstrust.bsky.social‬ Full-time (40 hours/week), fixed-term for 12 months (possible extension). Location: Hybrid - home working and Forth Rivers Trust office (Edinburgh), with regular travel across the Forth catchment c-js.uk/3Syid8B

This weekend, Clara from our team attended the Portmoak Community Gala near Loch Leven 🌿 It was a great chance to share updates on our work in the Leven Catchment, especially our Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) project. #LevenLENs #LandscapeConnections

🌱 Funding available in Loch Leven for tree planting🌳 We're looking to support tree planting in the Loch Leven catchment as part of our Leven LENs project. If you're a farmer or land manager looking for native broadleaf planting, get in touch to express interest - hurry, the deadline is on Monday!

🌊 River levels still low around the Forth 💧 At Craigforth, the river sits just over half a metre (0.574m) — within the normal range, but trending downwards. Recent rain offered some relief after weeks of dry weather, but levels are falling again. #RiverLevels #WaterWatch

🌿 West Lothian Community INNS workshop - less than 2 weeks to go! 🌿 We are running a workshop on Thursday 5th of June at Murieston Village Hall from 7.30-9pm. Join us to learn more about Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS), associated impacts, & how you can get involved to help make a difference.

🔍Rust fungus trials🔬 CABI kindly shared an update with us about the rust fungus we hope to trial as a control method for Himalayan Balsam in the Devon catchment. Here's photos of Charlotte collecting balsam seeds, the plants being tested at stem-infecting stage...

West Lothian Community INNS workshop 🌿🔍 We're pleased to announce we'll run an INNS workshop on Thursday 5th of June at Murieston Village Hall from 7.30-9pm. Join FRT staff, learn more about Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS), their associated impacts, & how you can get involved...

They say the early bird gets the worm🪱 and yesterday morning Mario spotted plenty of wildlife activity during his dawn bird survey... He had an early rise to survey Stenhouse Reservoir in Fife, but alongside spotting Shellducks, Reed Warblers, Reed Bunting, and a swallow, he also saw...

♻ Dalkeith litter pick ♻ A big thank you to those who joined our litter pick on Friday 2nd May in Dalkeith. With some sunny weather, it was great to spend time next to the South Esk removing several kilos of the litter and debris in just 2 hours - see photos below for the variety of things we found!

🎉Fundraiser grand total🎉 Our 'Rooted in Rivers' fundraiser as part of Big Give's Green Match Fund 2025 concluded at midday last Tuesday... and we're excited to share that we fundraised OVER £18,800!! Reaching this amount from 62 donations in just 7 days is a fantastic achievement...

🌱 We’re looking to support nature in the Lothian Esks! 🐟 Whether you’re a land manager, farmer, a land-based business or organisation in the Lothian Esk Catchment, you can get in touch with us for support.

🎉 Over 2k fundraised for riparian tree planting so far! Help us reach our 20k goal 🙌 Huge thanks to those who have supported our Green Match fund campaign already – your donations will help us to protect and improve rivers and support biodiversity through tree planting around rivers.

🌍 Happy World Earth Day from Forth Rivers Trust! 🌍 Earth Day is celebrated on April 22 each year, promoting environmental protection & awareness. Today YOU can make a direct difference to rivers in the Forth catchment. 👉https://tinyurl.com/RootedInRivers