Big Canopy Campout 2026
Traditional midge repellent! Glenan Wood, Scotland
A Gathering of Fascinating People
The weekend of the 25th of July, over 650 people across 18 countries showed up in forests, up trees, and part of a global movement. 38 campouts happened at the same time, on the same weekend, all pointing at the same question.
That's the whole point of Big Canopy Campout. Not a festival. Not a fundraiser gala. An event gathering fascinating minds, frontline activists, and a community of people showing curiosity about our relationship to forests and what our responsibility towards it looks like.
- 38 campouts (2 Campouts rained off - nature holds the cards!)
- 18 countries
- Over 650 people in forests, up trees, part of the movement
- One weekend, everywhere at once
Campside chats
Nine Years of Standing With Forest Defenders
For the past nine years, Big Canopy Campout has supported frontline forest defenders all over the world.
2017 & 2018: World Land Trust. Since 1989, World Land Trust has raised funds for partner organisations in more than 30 countries, directly saving over one million hectares, working through the people who know that land best. What we learnt: conservation isn't charity, it's infrastructure. Land protected acre by acre is land that stays out of the hands of industries built to destroy it.
2020: Bob Brown Foundation. Protecting ancient, native, old growth temperate rainforest on indigenous land in Tasmania, we watched them change legislation, battle authorities, and support activists through legal battles. What we learnt: protecting a forest isn't enough. You have to face the laws and systems built to damage it, and change them.
2021 to 2023: The Siekoya Remolino. In the lowland rainforests of the Ecuadorian Amazon, the Siekoya Remolino taught us that indigenous knowledge and relationship with the natural world is the key to understanding our own relationship with nature. They showed us what resistance looks like in the face of hopelessness, fighting for their territory and joining forces with other indigenous communities to protect their homes. What we learnt: resistance isn't a metaphor. For many, it's daily survival.
2025 & 2026: Friends of Glenan Wood. In Scotland, Friends of Glenan has shown us that building a community, gathering fascinating minds across a diversity of backgrounds and cultures, can change the future. What we learnt: the fight for forests is also a fight for who gets a seat at the table.
Bob Brown Foundation Campout 2023
What Actually Happened
For the second year in a row, we supported Friends of Glenan Wood on the west coast of Scotland, home to one of the rarest forest types in the world: Atlantic rainforest.
Scotland is known for its rainfall. And yet, as we celebrated the campout, Scotland burned. Wildfires raged and took with them acres of Caledonian pine forest.
It's a hard truth to sit with alongside a weekend of celebration. But it's also exactly why this event exists. Big Canopy Campout isn't just about connecting with others and spending time in forests. It's about realising our responsibility to nature. Protecting forests is key to the future of our planet, and protecting them means knowing them first.
Why This Matters (And Why We Keep Saying It)
Atlantic Rainforest, Scotland
In a fast and pressured world, pausing is an act of resistance.
Hundreds of people, in dozens of countries, chose to step away from daily life and spend a weekend with people, in nature. No phones, no deadlines, no productivity. Just presence.
And the world is literally on fire. That's exactly why this matters. Knowing that hundreds of people around the world paused, connected, and camped at the same time is a delight and an impact in itself. It's proof that another way of moving through the world is still possible, still chosen, still happening.
Big Canopy Campout isn't about teaching anyone to love trees. It's about making space and time for something that already exists in all of us, and getting out from behind our screens long enough to remember it.
What did you take from the campout weekend?
What's Next
Sign up (free) to our members page, upload 3 photos that represent your campout, and add a few paragraphs, in any language, about your experience. Funny, serious, entertaining, curious, whatever you noticed, we want it. We'll share it with the whole community. Knowing there are people around the world doing their part creates a space for collective hope, and enough inspiration to keep going, to keep doing the small things that add up.
Enter the raffle and photography competitions!!
Open until 14th August. Win limited edition fundraising products from BCC. [Link to raffle]
Join an online campfire chat.
The BCC team is opening up online campfire chats to all campout participants in late August/September. Come share your stories and talk ideas for next year. [Sign up here] if you're interested, we'd love to talk to you. Contact us here to organise a date and time
Certificates. Downloadable certificates will be sent out to each campout by the end of August!
The Ripple Effect
We campout together. We sing, we chat round a fire, we sleep up and out. We shirk our daily patterns and comforts in an attempt to remind ourselves we are still part of nature, and that this includes our connection to other humans too.
We won't save the world over one weekend. We won't end deforestation. But perhaps, just perhaps, a conversation with a stranger leads you to the book that opens up a new field of curiosity. Or an Instagram video leads to a new way of thinking. Or a connection to a new person leads to new people, a new project, a new outlook. Or maybe you find people who already agree with an outlook you've held for a long time, and that's enough too.
This ripple effect is how we steadily change the things that seem unchangeable.
If this weekend reminded you why the forest matters, the best thing you can do is simple: go outside again before the year ends. Bring someone who's never climbed. Don't wait for next July.
See you in the trees,
Vics
Life in forests