CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 3 10^th June 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: ROLE OF CNPA IN BEAVER TRANSLOCATION

Pre­pared by: SARAH HEN­SHALL, HEAD OF CONSERVATION

Pur­pose

This paper presents the cur­rent pos­i­tion on beaver trans­lo­ca­tion in Scot­land and the options for CNPA role in facil­it­at­ing the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy to act­ively expand the beaver pop­u­la­tion in Scotland.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is asked to: a) con­sider the options for facil­it­at­ing the trans­lo­ca­tion of beavers into the Cairngorms Nation­al Park b) approve the recom­mend­a­tion that CNPA takes a lead role in mak­ing an applic­a­tion for beaver translocation.

Policy Con­text

1. In 2016, Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment announced it was minded to allow the two estab­lished Scot­tish beaver pop­u­la­tions to remain, and that beavers “…would be allowed to expand their range nat­ur­ally”. In May 2019 beavers were made European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies in Scot­land, mean­ing it is an offence to delib­er­ately cap­ture, kill or dis­turb a wild beaver, or dam­age or des­troy a breed­ing site or rest­ing place of a wild beaver, without a licence.
2. In Novem­ber 2021 Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment announced a fur­ther change to policy to act­ively sup­port the expan­sion of the beaver pop­u­la­tion, pro­mot­ing trans­lo­ca­tion to help estab­lish beaver pres­ence in areas of Scot­land out­side their cur­rent range, bey­ond where nat­ur­al expan­sion would be expec­ted to reach in the short term.

Sum­mary of work in Cairngorms to date

1. In Novem­ber 2020 the Cairngorms Nature beaver sub-group agreed the com­mis­sion­ing of an assess­ment of how beavers may nat­ur­ally col­on­ise and dis­perse with­in and out of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, the likely impacts on eco­logy and land use and the oppor­tun­it­ies for bene­fits. The final report was made pub­lic in April 2022 Beaver study reveals how they might reach the Park — Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity.
2. The main find­ings of the report are: there are sig­ni­fic­ant bar­ri­ers to nat­ur­al dis­pers­al; around 20% of water­courses are suit­able or highly suit­able, primar­ily in the lochs and wet­lands sys­tems of the Spey; there are sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­it­ies for nature res­tor­a­tion and build­ing eco­sys­tem resi­li­ence; pre­dicted impacts, not­ably on agri­cul­tur­al sys­tems, fish­er­ies man­age­ment and spe­cies con­ser­va­tion, can, and will need to be, care­fully man­aged through the exist­ing mit­ig­a­tion scheme; and, more work is needed to fully under­stand the likely rates of expan­sion and dispersal.
3. Fol­low­ing a meet­ing in Janu­ary 2022 to dis­cuss the find­ings of the report in light of the new nation­al policy, the Cairngorms Nature beaver sub-group recom­men­ded CNPA work closely with NatureScot and New­castle Uni­ver­sity to carry out simple GIS-based map­ping for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park with the aim of devel­op­ing and run­ning pop­u­la­tion mod­els for pop­u­la­tion expan­sion and dis­pers­al from a num­ber of dif­fer­ent sites in the Park. This work is under­way as part of the devel­op­ment of the nation­al beaver strategy.
4. By sum­mer 2022, the Nation­al Strategy will have iden­ti­fied pri­or­ity stra­tegic areas for beaver expan­sion. Giv­en the high pro­file and suit­ab­il­ity, it is reas­on­able to expect applic­a­tions for release into the Cairngorms Nation­al Park soon after pub­lic­a­tion of the Nation­al Strategy.

Nation­al Beaver Strategy

1. In Feb­ru­ary 2022 NatureScot star­ted the pro­cess of devel­op­ing a Nation­al Beaver Strategy, work­ing with stake­hold­ers and part­ners, includ­ing CNPA. The Nation­al Beaver Strategy 2022 – 2045 iden­ti­fies a pro­gramme of activ­ity for the first 10 years that will facil­it­ate beaver expan­sion into appro­pri­ate areas and agree object­ives and actions relat­ing to con­ser­va­tion trans­lo­ca­tion, mit­ig­a­tion & man­age­ment, policy and pro­gramme links, research and devel­op­ment, stake­hold­er com­mu­nic­a­tion, decision-mak­ing and governance.
2. By the end of June 2022, the final Nation­al Strategy will be pub­lished. Along­side this NatureScot will identi­fy 2 – 3 pri­or­ity stra­tegic areas for beaver expan­sion. NatureScot and part­ners are estab­lish­ing the gov­ernance struc­tures, pro­to­cols, pro­ced­ures, and con­sulta­tion mech­an­isms to facil­it­ate expan­sion. As part of the gov­ernance struc­ture, it is expec­ted that the Nation­al Beaver For­um will be reshaped, and their remit and geo­graph­ic­al cov­er­age expan­ded to over­see imple­ment­a­tion of the strategy. Should the Cairngorms Nation­al Park be one of the first areas in Scot­land to be a recip­i­ent site, then it is expec­ted CNPA would be part of the gov­ernance group.

Pop­u­la­tion Expan­sion and Dis­pers­al Modelling

1. NatureScot are under­tak­ing mod­el­ling at a nation­al level (130 catch­ments) and are also work­ing up a num­ber of the­or­et­ic­al release scen­ari­os to inform dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers and part­ners involved in the Nation­al Strategy devel­op­ment. Mod­el­ling is inform­ing scop­ing of suit­able new catch­ments and the require­ments for con­sulta­tions, engage­ment, and Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ments. Whilst the mod­el­ling work is not part of the Nation­al Strategy it will com­pli­ment it and sup­port its imple­ment­a­tion. Mod­el­ling work is also being used to identi­fy 2 – 3 pri­or­ity catch­ments for ini­tial trans­lo­ca­tion focus.
2. The ongo­ing mod­el­ling work has iden­ti­fied the Spey catch­ment as one of the pri­or­ity can­did­ates for release. The NS mod­el­ling has built on the dam capa­city and hab­it­at suit­ab­il­ity assess­ments com­mis­sioned by CNPA. The fur­ther data and exam­in­a­tions asso­ci­ated with the mod­el­ling estab­lishes where beavers would be most likely to set up ter­rit­or­ies, the loc­a­tion of dams, oppor­tun­it­ies, and con­straints. This has shown there is approx­im­ately 7,000 ha of highly suit­able hab­it­at in the Spey catch­ment, the largest area of highly suit­able hab­it­at in the pri­or­ity catch­ments modelled.
3. In par­al­lel to the devel­op­ment of the Nation­al Strategy, NS and pub­lic body part­ners are invest­ig­at­ing pos­sib­il­it­ies for expe­di­at­ing facil­it­ated expan­sion by assess­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for release on pub­lic land as soon as pos­sible, where there are favour­able circumstances.

The Scot­tish Code for Con­ser­va­tion Translocations

1. Any trans­lo­ca­tion must fol­low The Scot­tish Code for Con­ser­va­tion Trans­lo­ca­tions | NatureScot. The Code sets out when con­ser­va­tion trans­lo­ca­tions may be appro­pri­ate and situ­ations in which they could cause prob­lems to wild­life, people and the envir­on­ment. The pro­cess scores risks and bene­fits, focus­sing study on area of greatest risk, includes con­sid­er­a­tions of bio­lo­gic­al and socio/​economic factors and pat­terns of dispersal.
2. In sum­mary, the key con­sid­er­a­tions in the Scot­tish Code for Trans­lo­ca­tion are: a) Under­take an ini­tial apprais­al, to include a pre­lim­in­ary assess­ment of leg­al issues, bene­fits, and bio­lo­gic­al and socio-eco­nom­ic risks b) Set goals c) Obtain neces­sary per­mis­sions and licences d) Max­im­ise chances of suc­cess, and min­im­ise chances of fail­ure, by tak­ing account of bio­lo­gic­al con­sid­er­a­tions, pub­lic and anim­al health factors, anim­al wel­fare, release site suit­ab­il­ity etc. e) Con­sult with rel­ev­ant land users and oth­er stake­hold­ers f) Mon­it­or the trans­lo­ca­tion at an appro­pri­ate level and respond to issues that arise g) Keep rel­ev­ant people informed, and share inform­a­tion to guide future work
3. The organ­isa­tion or indi­vidu­al lead­ing on the trans­lo­ca­tion would be respons­ible for ensur­ing the above are adequately addressed. Per­mis­sion must be agreed with the landown­er respons­ible for the pro­posed release for any trans­lo­ca­tion, with extens­ive and com­pre­hens­ive con­sulta­tion with land man­agers, stake­hold­ers and communities.

Applic­a­tion process

1. Beavers are a European Pro­tec­ted Spe­cies so trans­lo­ca­tion pro­jects will need to apply for and be issued with a licence from NatureScot to pos­sess, trans­port and release beavers. Pro­jects are expec­ted to fol­low the best prac­tice guid­ance set out in The Scot­tish Code for Con­ser­va­tion Trans­lo­ca­tions (SCCT), which are based on the IUCN Guidelines for Rein­tro­duc­tions and oth­er Con­ser­va­tion Translocations.

2. Trans­lo­ca­tion applic­a­tions must sat­is­fy the fol­low­ing cri­ter­ia: a) Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of recept­or site. Any recept­or site would have to have the appro­pri­ate hab­it­at and con­di­tions to be able to sup­port beavers and appro­pri­ate landown­er per­mis­sion and engage­ment with the rel­ev­ant stake­hold­ers. b) Resources and Expert­ise. Trans­lo­ca­tion can be time-con­sum­ing and expens­ive. It has to be car­ried out pro­fes­sion­ally both to min­im­ise wel­fare impacts and oth­er risks, and to max­im­ise the chances of suc­cess. Trans­lo­ca­tion will there­fore only be accept­able if the licens­ing body are assured that suf­fi­cient resources and expert­ise are avail­able to suc­cess­fully under­take it. c) Per­mis­sions. Per­mis­sion needs to be secured from landown­ers at both donor and recept­or sites and, if trans­lo­cat­ing anim­als out­side of Scot­land, the rel­ev­ant licences to do so. The broad prin­ciples relat­ing to landown­er per­mis­sion and engage­ment with oth­er people poten­tially affected are set out in The Scot­tish Code for Con­ser­va­tion Translocations.

3. The sourcing of beavers for trans­lo­ca­tion pro­jects is covered by a sep­ar­ate licence, in most cases held by a land man­ager exper­i­en­cing land use con­flict and where beaver remov­al under licence has been approved to pre­vent ser­i­ous damage.

4. NatureScot (NS) will be seek­ing applic­a­tions of a more stra­tegic nature for pro­posed releases into new catch­ments informed by the Nation­al Beaver Strategy, rather than from small, isol­ated land­hold­ings. When con­sid­er­ing releases into new catch­ments, the assess­ment of risks and bene­fits will need to be at a whole or sub-catch­ment scale, rather than being spe­cif­ic to the land hold­ing where they are released.
5. NatureScot are cur­rently look­ing at refin­ing and stream­lin­ing the applic­a­tion pro­cess by the end of sum­mer 2022, sup­ple­ment­ing the exist­ing guid­ance and the Trans­lo­ca­tion Code with more detail on expect­a­tions for con­sulta­tion and release site suit­ab­il­ity assess­ments. Early dis­cus­sion and assur­ance that prop­er stake­hold­er engage­ment will be under­taken is strongly encour­aged. To sup­port the pro­cess, NS will under­take catch­ment scale Stra­tegic Envir­on­ment­al Assess­ments and HRA.

Cairngorms Nature Beaver Sub-group

1. The Cairngorms Nature Beaver sub-group was estab­lished to plan and pre­pare for arrival of beaver in the Nation­al Park by nat­ur­al means. It com­prises rep­res­ent­at­ives from NatureScot, RSPB, NFUS, SL&E, Spey Fish­ery Board, River Dee Trust, South Esk Catch­ment Part­ner­ship and James Hut­ton Insti­tute. As Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment policy changed, the sub-group dis­cus­sions and remit changed to reflect that.
2. Group mem­bers recog­nise that whilst mem­ber­ship already includes organ­isa­tions that rep­res­ent the interests of land man­agers out with the Park, e.g. NFUS, SL&E and Spey Fish­er­ies Board, the mem­ber­ship and remit would need to change to reflect a chan­ging object­ive and the need for a catch­ment wide con­sulta­tion and engage­ment. With this in mind, FLS, Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive, CON­FOR and RZSS have been invited to join the group and terms of ref­er­ence are being drafted.
3. The Cairngorms Nature Beaver sub­group is highly regarded and well atten­ded. CNPA has high levels of sup­port from part­ners and stake­hold­ers for con­tinu­ing to take a lead­er­ship role as nation­al ambi­tions for beaver expan­sion are being realised.

Options for CNPA role in beaver translocation

1. The Nation­al Beaver Strategy and asso­ci­ated mod­el­ling work will focus atten­tion, resources and effort to facil­it­ate trans­lo­ca­tion in the Park and it is fully expec­ted that there will be applic­a­tions to release into the Park as soon as is prac­tic­ally pos­sible. Applic­a­tions could come dir­ectly from land own­ers and man­agers in the Park or from organ­isa­tions act­ing as a lead agent with the per­mis­sion of land own­ers will­ing to release beaver on their land.

2. In each of these scen­ari­os the CNPA could poten­tially have a dif­fer­ent role:

   Observ­er role

3. With this approach a trans­lo­ca­tion would have to meet the cri­ter­ia assessed by NatureScot as the licens­ing body. CNPA, with advice from the Cairngorms Beaver Group, would provide com­ment to NatureScot as con­sul­tee on indi­vidu­al applic­a­tions in the Park from third parties. The indi­vidu­al landown­er would have own­er­ship of and respons­ib­il­ity for the trans­lo­ca­tion pro­cess and deliv­ery. They would liaise with NS, appoint their con­tract­ors of choice and be dir­ectly respons­ible for stake­hold­er engage­ment and con­sulta­tion. The applic­ant would have no require­ment to provide ongo­ing landown­er support.

4. If this approach is taken there would be no addi­tion­al CNPA resource require­ments as this could be absorbed into core busi­ness. How­ever, CNPA could be exposed to repu­ta­tion­al risk as it is often the de facto point of con­tact for issues in the Park. CNPA could end up man­aging neg­at­ive issues and rela­tion­ship that are not an effect of our actions regard­less of where respons­ib­il­ity lies.

   Facil­it­a­tion and sup­port­ing role

5. Addi­tion­al CNPA resource could be made avail­able to sup­port oth­ers with the con­sulta­tion and applic­a­tion pro­cess and pos­sibly com­ple­ment the NatureScot role in sup­port­ing land man­agers with mit­ig­a­tion and man­age­ment e.g. through dis­sem­in­at­ing inform­a­tion and best prac­tice, shar­ing data, and sup­port­ing mit­ig­a­tion trials.
6. The bene­fit of this approach is that the landown­er who makes the applic­a­tion has dir­ect own­er­ship and respons­ib­il­ity of the whole pro­cess. This will have less resource implic­a­tion for CNPA. CNPA can provide advice, sup­port and encour­age an exem­plar approach but there is no guar­an­tee this will be adop­ted and there is no incent­ive for an indi­vidu­al landown­er to do this and it may be chal­len­ging to resolve con­flicts cre­ated by a pro­cess that we were not dir­ectly respons­ible for.
7. A poten­tial risk is that the applic­ant will look at their site in isol­a­tion without a stra­tegic whole Park approach, or a more hol­ist­ic view of the mul­tiple object­ives and implic­a­tions of beaver release, com­ing at it from a sin­gu­lar per­spect­ive. They may also not have the resource, net­works, and expert­ise to under­take stake­hold­er engage­ment and provide the same level of landown­er sup­port as CNPA could.

8. There is still sig­ni­fic­ant poten­tial for repu­ta­tion­al risk for the CNPA from this approach. We would be involved in the pro­cess but would not have con­trol and because of our role in the over­all man­age­ment of the Park would likely be the have to deal with any issues without actu­ally being the respons­ible party. There is a lack of clar­ity in this approach.

   Lead­er­ship role

9. CNPA to take the lead with a stra­tegic long term spa­tial and tem­por­al approach to trans­lo­ca­tion across the whole Park. CNPA would instig­ate and closely man­age the whole pro­cess includ­ing applic­a­tion, deliv­ery, mit­ig­a­tion sup­port and mon­it­or­ing, work­ing with part­ners and sup­por­ted by Cairngorms Beaver Group.
10. CNPA are well posi­tioned to take a lead­er­ship role, and has the con­fid­ence of a wide range of stake­hold­ers to do so. CNPA is the first point of con­tact with land man­agers and own­ers in the Park through a wide range of exist­ing pro­jects, part­ner­ships and rela­tion­ships, and there­fore well placed to bet­ter rep­res­ent a wide range of views and take a bal­anced approach. Addi­tion­ally, CNPA can ensure beaver trans­lo­ca­tion and man­age­ment is joined up with nature and land man­age­ment pro­jects such as ripari­an plant­ing, wet­land res­tor­a­tion, spe­cies con­ser­va­tion, research and mit­ig­a­tion tri­als as well as draw­ing on learn­ing from UK and exper­i­ence from Europe.
11. The bene­fit of this approach is that CNPA will be able to dic­tate the tim­ings for trans­lo­ca­tions and the pace at which the pro­cess is rolled out; not­ably ensur­ing con­sulta­tion is done prop­erly with a whole catch­ment approach. There is sig­ni­fic­ant oppor­tun­ity to provide an exem­plar approach that will also allow the real­isa­tion of mul­tiple bene­fits includ­ing com­munity and visitors/​tourism bene­fits along­side con­ser­va­tion and land management.
12. The risk of CNPA not tak­ing a lead­er­ship role is that oth­ers will intro­duce beaver into the Park and we may have little con­trol or influ­ence over the pro­cess. Any applic­a­tion from an indi­vidu­al landown­er is unlikely take a whole park approach or have the resources and expert­ise to fully engage with and sup­port landown­ers through­out the whole process.
13. The Nation­al Park Author­ity was also cre­ated to ensure coordin­a­tion of con­ten­tious issues in the park and to ensure that the wider man­age­ment implic­a­tions of issues, such as, beaver trans­lo­ca­tions were well under­stood and were imple­men­ted cor­rectly. This approach fits with the role of a Nation­al Park Author­ity and is in line with stake­hold­er expectations.

14. Fol­low­ing the dis­cus­sion of the Cairngorms Nature Beaver sub-group on the 26 May, mem­bers strongly advoc­ated for CNPA to be pro­act­ive and take a lead­er­ship role. A stra­tegic, well sup­por­ted Park-wide approach is required to ensure risks are min­im­ised and oppor­tun­it­ies are real­ised. Sup­port for landown­ers, man­agers and com­munit­ies is crit­ic­al and CNPA is the ideal pos­i­tion to provide this. The group also iden­ti­fied bene­fits of CNPA tak­ing a lead­er­ship role includ­ing the oppor­tun­ity to deliv­er exem­plar or ​‘gold stand­ard’ trans­lo­ca­tion that oth­ers can fol­low and giv­ing land mangers more sup­port than any­where else in Scotland.

15. The recom­mend­a­tion is for CNPA to take a lead­er­ship role and devel­op an applic­a­tion to NS to trans­lo­cate beavers into the Cairngorms Nation­al Park as soon as possible

Costs and Resource Implications

1. With­in the Nation­al Beaver Strategy there is a spe­cif­ic goal to ​‘secure avail­ab­il­ity of sup­port and fund­ing for beaver trans­lo­ca­tion’, along­side an asso­ci­ated object­ive and actions. Whilst this out­line the desired approach, to date there is no spe­cif­ic detail on the level of resource and fund­ing that will be avail­able. NatureScot have advised that they are cur­rently recruit­ing two new mem­bers of staff to sup­port the pro­cess through­out the whole of Scot­land and that fund­ing will con­tin­ue to be dir­ec­tion­al and demand led. Dir­ec­tion­al fund­ing will be avail­able for spe­cif­ic prac­tic­al ele­ments asso­ci­ated with con­ser­va­tion trans­lo­ca­tions (trap­ping, trans­port, cap­tive care, health screen­ing), togeth­er with asso­ci­ated mit­ig­a­tion actions.
2. Indic­at­ive resource require­ment for CNPA to take a lead­er­ship role is £70,000 per annum for 2 years. The costs of this order can be accom­mod­ated in the Nature and Cli­mate Change Dir­ect­or­ate oper­a­tion­al plan budget as per ²⁰²²⁄₂₃. Ongo­ing sup­port for land man­agers will be required as part of ongo­ing core business.

Sarah Hen­shall 31^st May 2022 sarahhenshall@​cairngorms.​co.​uk