Spey Catchment Engagement Officer

The Spey Catchment Initiative is recruiting a new Spey Catchment Engagement Officer to help deliver a new programme of engagement with farmers, landowners and land managers across the catchment.

Are you a natural listener who builds trust easily, with people from all walks of life?

Do you want to help tackle the climate crisis by playing a key role in an ambitious programme to fund and deliver catchment-scale nature restoration?

Can you hold your own in a farmyard conversation as comfortably as in a partnership meeting?

Are you ready to join our small, friendly and award-winning team?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

The Spey Catchment Initiative (SCI) has an exciting opportunity for a highly motivated engagement officer to help deliver a new programme of engagement with farmers, landowners and land managers across the Spey catchment.

This work will directly shape two major programmes now being developed for the catchment — The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Catchment Investment Programme and the Atlantic Salmon Trust’s (AST) Catchment Audit — by making sure land managers are properly understood, kept informed, and more importantly genuinely listened to as these programmes take shape. We want you to help give land managers a seat at the table and to be involved in creating solutions.

The Spey Catchment Initiative (SCI) is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO), established in 2010, working in partnership across the Spey catchment to protect and restore its rivers, woodlands and wider natural environment.

Two major programmes are currently being developed in the Spey catchment:
The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Spey Catchment Investment Programme, and the Atlantic Salmon Trust’s (AST) Catchment Audit. Both are multi‑year programmes with the potential to attract significant investment in nature-based solutions (NbS), and both will be underpinned by understanding and addressing the needs of land managers across the catchment.

The Spey Catchment Engagement Officer will help deliver a programme of engagement with farmers, landowners and other land managers—understanding who they are, identifying where appetite for NbS and sensitivities lie, listening directly to their businesses, motivations and concerns and keeping them informed throughout.

Any future programme will only succeed with the participation and support of farmers and land managers. A solution that doesn’t work for the people who manage the land, will not work at all.

The postholder will work closely with SCI’s Head of Communications and Strategic Projects and wider team, and will be in regular contact with TNC, AST, Cairngorm National Park Authority and other catchment partners.

As a secondary part of this role, the postholder will also take on day-to-day creation and scheduling of SCI’s social media content, working closely with the wider team, and will develop materials to support their own engagement programme as needed. This sits under the overall communications and engagement oversight of SCI’s Head of Communications and Strategic Projects; land manager engagement remains the primary focus of the role throughout.

• Design and deliver a structured programme of engagement with land managers across the Spey catchment, built around five strands: understanding who land managers are, identifying appetite for NbS and sensitivities, listening to their businesses and concerns, keeping them informed and acting on what’s learned to shape delivery.
• Build and maintain trusted, direct relationships with farmers, landowners, estates and other land managers, including in areas of prior sensitivity, primarily through one-to-one conversations and small group settings.
• Convene and facilitate regular focus groups for…