The Campaign itself
Scotland’s Instagrammer community voiced out its concern over the Scottish outdoors in Spring 2017. The community was concerned about the degradation of the popular Scottish nature sites due to littering and over-use by visitors. Together, Scotland’s Instagrammers signed a charter, which addressed the issues mentioned above and agreed to promote responsible roaming outdoors, as well as promote the Scottish Outdoor Access Code itself.
We created a social media campaign #RoamResponsibly, through which we aim to spread knowledge of responsible ways of enjoying and spending time in nature and inspire people to take action to protect and preserve the Scottish landscapes and wildlife. We aim to also raise awareness about the Scottish Outdoor Access Code as well as relevant organisations in Scotland.
Access to nature belongs to us all, and so does the responsibility of preserving it for the Scottish wildlife and the future generations.
I won’t duplicate all the information to be found on the RoamResponsibly website, but make sure you visit it for yourself. You can help us spread the word and who knows, there may be skills you can offer yourself to help.
Campaign Background
Early last year the Scottish Instagram community started discussing the concerns we had regarding the responsibilities we had via our Instagram accounts. Amongst us we have a healthy following of people interested in Scotland and its amazing landscape. We were recognising more and more that the infrastructure was struggling and that certain groups may need to be educated in order to put less pressure on this precious landscape.
Two of the main instigators, Katrina Stewart and Elsa Lindholm started the ball rolling by rounding us up on facebook and drafting a charter we could sign up to.
I had a great chat with Elsa after the Today at Apple talk I was giving. Keen to take action, and share the ideas she had such enthusiasm to take action it was infectious. Elsa would later approach me to come up with an identity for the campaign. I was more than happy to oblige.
Above is the horizontal form we ended up with. Using the contour map with grid lines as a hashtag, we combine social media with the outdoors. I also produced a small profile roundal that incorporates the RR initials replacing the large sheet numbers you would find on an OS map. And here is the profile roundal.
It was Kat who arranged for us to attend a ‘walk and talk’ meeting on Schiehallion with the John Muir Trust. It was great hearing about the work they do and it was the perfect day to swap stories, share ideas and real showcase of what volunteers and education can do to help address our concerns.
Make sure you visit the RoamResponsibly blog, to find out more.
Thanks to their hard work, they also managed to attract the attention of big names. One of the first was CalMac Ferries, who have agreed to use the hashtag campaign in their posts. John Muir Trust are also on board and one of the latest are environmental organisation, Marine Conservation Society who are helping lead the way against the plastic tide. Instigating beach cleans and encouraging folk to #GoPlasticFree.
There are more companies and organisations signing up to the cause. The campaign is picking up momentum. So please like, follow and share using the tag #RoamResponsibly on all the usual platforms. All the info is right here www.roamresponsibly.com