220211PerformanceCtteePaper4Annex1

Taing dhan A’ Mhaoin- Dual­chais Made pos­sible with Her­it­age Fund

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 4 Annex 1 11/02/22

Cairngorms NATION­AL PARK Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project

Pro­gress Report: 1 Oct — 31 Dec 2021

The inform­a­tion in this doc­u­ment is sub­mit­ted and dis­cussed as part of the Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project’s quarterly report­ing to the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund.

Pro­ject summary

The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is work­ing to secure the long-term sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie in the UK. Fun­ded by the Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund until July 2023, the project’s actions for caper­cail­lie are being delivered across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

The project’s key actions are:

• to enable com­munit­ies to devel­op and deliv­er their own com­munity-led actions for capercaillie;
• raise aware­ness of the plight of caper­cail­lie and how people can help;
• research the genet­ic diversity of caper­cail­lie in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to help inform action;
• improve and cre­ate more hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie and under­take pred­at­or con­trol in key areas;
• strengthen cur­rent caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing to enable more informed decisions

The pro­ject is led by the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and delivered in part­ner­ship with the Badenoch & Strath­spey Trail Asso­ci­ation, Bal­mor­al Estate, Brook Forestry, Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group, Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scot­land, Forestry and Land Scot­land, Groves Forestry, Rothiemurchus Estate, RSPB, Scot­tish Forestry, NatureScot and Seafield and Strath­spey Estates.

Pro­ject start date	22 July 2020
Grant expiry date	30 July 2023

Pro­gress towards the project’s approved purposes

Col­or	Mean­ing
Green	Deliv­ery is on track
Amber	Minor issues are impact­ing delivery
Red	Major issues are impact­ing delivery

The project’s three-step mod­el for enabling com­munity-led action for capercaillie

Stage	Descrip­tion
Stage 1: Why?	This stage is about defin­ing the cause. Why does (or might) caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion mat­ter to the com­munity? This is about identi­fy­ing the key interest groups and lead­ers in the com­munity and listen­ing to them to identi­fy the issues and themes at play related to caper­cail­lie conservation.
Stage 2: How?	This stage is about identi­fy­ing how the com­munity feels about the cause by identi­fy­ing the views held in the wider com­munity, how wide­spread those views are and where the com­mon ground is.
Stage 3: What?	This stage is about enabling the com­munity to take action for the cause using the data and ana­lys­is from Stage 2 and help­ing the com­munity plan how to mon­it­or and eval­u­ate the actions they deliv­er in response.

Approved pur­pose	Sum­mary of pro­gress	Status
Empower com­munit­ies to help ensure the sur­viv­al of caper­cail­lie through com­munity-led con­ser­va­tion, by imple­ment­ing the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy and devel­op­ing, agree­ing and imple­ment­ing action plans with addi­tion­al communities.	Car­rbridge com­munity – Stage 3 The Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group have delivered the fol­low­ing action from the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy: Com­pleted a second com­munity con­sulta­tion enabling Car­rbridge res­id­ents to share their views about draft design con­cepts for improv­ing paths and out­door spaces around Car­rbridge to enable thriv­ing caper­cail­lie areas around the vil­lage, and paths and out­door spaces for all res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to enjoy. The con­sulta­tion res­ults are avail­able at cairngormscapercaillie.scot/communities/carrbridge Issue (raised in the last High­light Report): An updated and cos­ted Action Plan for the Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Con­ser­va­tion Strategy is still over­due, but work in progress.
	Moun­tain bik­ing com­munity – Stage 3 As per the Trail Feath­ers Pro­ject Plan avail­able at cairngormscapercaillie.scot/communities/mountain-bikers, a series of work­shops have been held to devel­op a stra­tegic plan for man­aging moun­tain bik­ing recre­ation in Badenoch & Strath­spey. The work­shops have involved mem­bers of the Trail Feath­ers group includ­ing the Badenoch & Strath­spey Trail Asso­ci­ation, Forestry and Land Scot­land, Seafield and Strath­spey Estates, RSPB, CNPA and NatureScot shar­ing their views on the draft stra­tegic plan. Oth­er rel­ev­ant landown­ers and the Loc­al Out­door Access For­um will also be con­sul­ted before a final ver­sion of the plan is pub­lished this spring.
	Busi­ness com­munity – Stage 2 A draft action plan has been developed based on the res­ults of the online sur­vey for busi­nesses. The sur­vey iden­ti­fied how the busi­ness com­munity feels about pro­mot­ing the area’s nat­ur­al her­it­age and ways to enjoy it respons­ibly. It was com­pleted by 131 busi­nesses; secur­ing a 95% con­fid­ence level in the res­ults. A work­shop is sched­uled for late Janu­ary when the draft action plan will be shared and dis­cussed with the busi­ness community.
	Vis­it­or com­munity – Stage 2 The research regard­ing vis­it­ors to Glen­more Forest Park, Aber­nethy and Rothiemurchus is com­plete. A series of present­a­tions to begin shar­ing the research have been delivered to 45 mem­bers of CNPA and part­ner staff and volun­teers. In late Janu­ary the research find­ings and seg­ment­a­tion mod­el pro­duced will be shared at a work­shop with the busi­ness com­munity and avail­able to all at cairngormscapercaillie.scot/communities/visitors from early Feb­ru­ary. The research will then be used to inform the action plan­ning pro­cess (Stage 3).
	Deeside com­munit­ies – Stage 2 An online sur­vey (the second stage of research in Deeside) is live. It aims to identi­fy how res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to Deeside feel about caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion in Deeside. The res­ults will be used to inform the action plan­ning pro­cess (Stage 3). Listen­ing ses­sions con­duc­ted with 30 key people con­nec­ted to the Deeside area formed the first part of the research. The major­ity views shared through the listen­ing ses­sions informed the online sur­vey which, so far, 347 res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to Deeside have com­pleted. The tar­get sample size is 385 to ensure a 95% con­fid­ence level in the results.
Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges facing caper­cail­lie through a vari­ety of means includ­ing social media activ­it­ies and events, a new online engage­ment plat­form, volun­teer work, a pub­lic app, new resources for schools and genet­ics analysis.
This quarter the pro­ject web­site has attrac­ted 238 return­ing vis­it­ors; up 52% on the last quarter, and 1,194 new vis­it­ors; up 45%. The pro­ject Face­book page has over 1000 fol­low­ers; up 150% on the last quarter. The fol­low­ing media have fea­tured the pro­ject this quarter: Strath­spey Her­ald (Novem­ber) RZSS Mem­ber Magazine — Life Links (Novem­ber) Deeside Piper (Decem­ber) A graph­ic has been pro­duced for use on social media to raise aware­ness of the impact of dis­turb­ance to caper­cail­lie in winter. It’s reached c20,000 people and been shared, liked and com­men­ted on over 1,000 times. To date volun­teers have donated 2,280 hours to the project. A series of autumn volun­teer ses­sions has been delivered. All over­sub­scribed, the ses­sions involved volun­teers improv­ing caper­cail­lie hab­it­at on Seafield, Rothiemurchus and Bal­mor­al Estate. New ses­sions for Janu­ary to March are in the pro­cess of being developed. Work is ongo­ing by RZSS to identi­fy the genet­ic diversity of the Cairngorms caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion using feath­ers col­lec­ted by the pro­ject from across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. DNA samples to com­pare against those col­lec­ted are in the pro­cess of being secured from Belarus and Slov­akia. Samples from Sweden, Poland, Ger­many, Aus­tria, Nor­way and France have already been secured, in addi­tion to UK samples thought to be pre-extinc­tion. Issue: Due to delays in sourcing lab equip­ment, the final report re the genet­ic diversity of the caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the Cairngorms will be pub­lished in August instead of March, and the action plan­ning work­shop due to take place in response to the report will now take place in Septem­ber instead of April.
Work with landown­ers to imple­ment plans to improve and man­age around 9,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at across six estates for the bene­fit of caper­cail­lie; enable landown­ers to play their part in caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion via a third-party grant scheme tar­get­ing land­hold­ings in caper­cail­lie areas.	The fol­low­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work has been delivered this quarter, improv­ing over 7,850 hec­tares of hab­it­at for capercaillie: Aber­nethy: Work to cut the field lay­er in the forest using a rob­ocut­ter has begun. This stands to improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for capercaillie. Bal­mor­al Estate: Man-made ditches have been blocked to re-wet and restore an area of over 50 hec­tares of forest bog for capercaillie. Rothiemurchus Estate: Foxes and crows have been con­trolled to enhance caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al. To help expand caper­cail­lie hab­it­at spruce sap­lings have also been removed from an area of regen­er­at­ing Scots pine. Seafield Estate: Foxes and crows have been con­trolled to enhance caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al and mark­ing has been replaced on a stra­tegic fence to avoid collisions. Hab­it­at improve­ment work fun­ded by the project’s grant scheme has been com­pleted. The work has involved restruc­tur­ing an area of wood­land near Aber­nethy to expand caper­cail­lie hab­it­at and mark­ing fen­cing over 1km from an act­ive caper­cail­lie lek to avoid collisions. Issues (both raised in the last High­light Report): Hab­it­at improve­ment plans for Rothiemurchus Estate are still being updated as some of the ori­gin­al ele­ments are no longer viable. Deer con­trol planned for Tom an Uird Forest can­not pro­ceed due to the pro­posed scheme no longer being con­sidered an option by Scot­tish Forestry.
Mon­it­or, test and eval­u­ate ideas through­out deliv­ery, apply­ing learn­ing from the pro­ject to refine activ­it­ies includ­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work, sur­vey tech­niques, pro­mo­tion­al activ­it­ies and the com­munity action plan­ning model.	Work is ongo­ing by RZSS to ana­lyse caper­cail­lie drop­pings col­lec­ted dur­ing the 2021 lek sea­son to identi­fy the most effect­ive stor­age meth­od for the drop­pings. The find­ings will be used to inform plans for a tri­al genet­ic lek sur­vey in April 2022. The aim of the genet­ic lek sur­vey is to estab­lish wheth­er the use of genet­ic mater­i­al provides a feas­ible altern­at­ive to cur­rent sur­vey meth­ods used to estim­ate pop­u­la­tion size which are reli­ant on caper­cail­lie sightings. The Eval­u­at­or has ended their con­tract with the pro­ject. Her­it­age Pathfind­er (second to The Eval­u­at­or in the ori­gin­al tender) will now under­take the pro­ject-wide mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation work, begin­ning in January.
Devel­op an innov­at­ive and rep­lic­able mod­el for com­munity-led spe­cies con­ser­va­tion that enables com­munit­ies to suc­cess­fully coex­ist with their nat­ur­al her­it­age, shar­ing the project’s find­ings intern­ally and extern­ally with UK organ­isa­tions, and fur­ther afield, to cre­ate a leg­acy of learning.	The Eval­u­ation Frame­work will include tools to mon­it­or and meas­ure the suc­cess of the model. Work by James Hut­ton Lim­ited is ongo­ing to doc­u­ment (on film) the pro­cess and out­comes of the Trail Feath­ers pro­ject (the project’s work with the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity) to provide inspir­a­tion, learn­ing and evid­ence in a way that can stim­u­late fur­ther debate and learning.

Mile­stones

Col­or	Mean­ing
Green	Deliv­ery is on track
Amber	Minor issues are impact­ing delivery
Red	Major issues are impact­ing delivery

Task	2020	2021	2022	2023
Recruit Pro­ject Officer, Com­mu­nic­a­tions Officer, Pro­ject Admin­is­trat­or, Com­munity Ranger and Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Assistant	:green_​square:
Devel­op a Comms Plan	:green_​square:
Launch a new pro­ject website	:green_​square:
Com­mis­sion the design of caper­cail­lie related resources for primary schools		:green_​square:
Devel­op an online caper­cail­lie hub		:green_​square:
Ana­lyse DNA from caper­cail­lie feath­ers col­lec­ted from across the Nation­al Park	:green_square::amber_square:
Deliv­er an action plan­ning work­shop in response to find­ings from the DNA analysis		:green_square::amber_square:
Tri­al a genet­ic lek survey		:green_square::amber_square:
Improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Aber­nethy Forest	:green_square::yellow_square::red_square:
Improve over 30 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Bad­den­gorm Woods	:green_​square:
Improve over 400 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Bal­mor­al Estate	:green_​square:
Improve over 300 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie in Tom an Uird Forest		:green_square::yellow_square::red_square:
Improve over 4,500 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Rothiemurchus Estate (includes pred­at­or control)	:green_square::yellow_square:
Improve over 3,000 hec­tares of hab­it­at for caper­cail­lie on Seafield and Strath­spey Estates (includes pred­at­or control)	:green_​square:
Launch a grant scheme to enable fur­ther hab­it­at improve­ment for capercaillie		:green_square::amber_square:

Task	2020	2021	2022	2023
Launch a pub­lic caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing app		:green_​square:
Con­duct brood, lek and occu­pancy surveys		:green_​square:	:green_​square:
Devel­op a Mon­it­or­ing and Eval­u­ation Framework	:green_square::amber_square:
Research com­munity views	:green_​square:
Plan actions	:green_square::amber_square:
Deliv­er actions		:green_square::amber_square:
Com­munity-led action – moun­tain bik­ing community	:green_​square:
Research com­munity views	:green_square::yellow_square:
Plan actions		:green_square::yellow_square:
Deliv­er actions		:green_square::yellow_square:
Research com­munity views	:green_​square:
Plan actions		:green_square::yellow_square:
Deliv­er actions		:green_square::yellow_square:
Com­munity-led action – busi­ness community		:green_square::yellow_square:
Research com­munity views		:green_square::yellow_square:
Plan actions		:green_square::yellow_square:
Deliv­er actions		:green_​square:
Com­munity-led action — Deeside communities			:green_​square:
Research com­munity views			:green_​square:
Plan actions			:green_​square:
Deliv­er actions			:green_​square:

Risks and Issues

Risk / Issue	Like­li­hood	Impact	Mit­ig­a­tion	Pri­or­ity
1. The diverse range of interests, organ­isa­tions and groups involved in the pro­ject presents chal­lenges to effect­ive part­ner­ship working.	Medi­um	Medi­um	All part­ners and areas of work are rep­res­en­ted on the Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team. The Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team oper­ates under a Part­ner­ship Agreement. Mem­bers of the CNPA Board and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team are mem­bers of the Pro­ject Board. The Pro­ject Board oper­ate under a Memor­andum of Agreement.	High No change
2. Com­munity-led ele­ments are not con­duc­ted in an effect­ive, trans­par­ent and defens­ible way lim­it­ing bene­fits and caus­ing dis­en­gage­ment and mis­trust in communities.	Medi­um	Medi­um	All learn­ing cap­tured from the devel­op­ment phase (and ongo­ing learn­ing in the deliv­ery phase) is being applied. The Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team (respons­ible for help­ing to strengthen the project’s com­munity-led work) com­prises of rep­res­ent­at­ives from all the com­munity groups and organ­isa­tions involved. A three-stage mod­el is in place to ensure work with oth­er com­munit­ies is only car­ried out if it’s con­sidered with­in the scope of the pro­ject and the com­munity is con­sidered viable to work with with the pro­ject resource available.	High No change
3. Pro­ject inform­a­tion is used to under­mine pub­lic sup­port for the project.	Medi­um	Medi­um	Pro­ject Board have stra­tegic respons­ib­il­ity for pro­ject communications. A Comms Plan is in place. All pro­ject doc­u­ments are writ­ten for a pub­lic audi­ence and pub­lished on the pro­ject web­site (as far as appropriate). A pro­ject Face­book page provides oppor­tun­it­ies to dis­pel myths and cor­rect misunderstandings.	High No change
4. Hab­it­at improve­ment work delayed or unvi­able due to changes onsite, delays in the pro­cess of apply­ing for FGS fund­ing and or con­flict­ing advice.	Medi­um	Medi­um	Part­ners apply­ing for FGS fund­ing are exper­i­enced in the pro­cess and have a good track record of secur­ing funding. Addi­tion­al resource is provided by the pro­ject to help strengthen applications. Scot­tish Forestry and NatureScot are pro­ject part­ners and mem­bers of the Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team.	High No change
5. Mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation inform­a­tion and pro­cesses are not used effect­ively to strengthen the pro­ject; inform leg­acy plan­ning; and help safe­guard the pro­ject from inher­ent risks.	Low	High	An Eval­u­ation Frame­work will be in place by the end of February. A cul­ture of reflec­tion is embed­ded in the pro­ject and pro­fes­sion­ally facil­it­ated where possible.	High No change
6. Cov­id related restric­tions lim­it pro­ject activ­it­ies and pace.	Low	High	Pro­act­ive approach taken to ensure activ­it­ies con­tin­ue with­in cur­rent guidelines and meet­ings take place in per­son where pos­sible to improve pro­ductiv­ity and help build relationships.	High No change
7. The pro­ject increases caper­cail­lie dis­turb­ance or is per­ceived to do so.	Medi­um	Medi­um	Staff are work­ing closely with landown­ers, land­man­agers and com­munity mem­bers to stay informed and respond to any issues or per­cep­tions related to disturbance. The Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team is in place and able to identi­fy ways for­ward when neces­sary to address issues or per­cep­tions related to disturbance. Comms assets are act­ively shared with part­ners and third parties to reduce the need for caper­cail­lie film­ing and photography. All sur­vey work is com­pleted under licence and all hab­it­at improve­ment and mon­it­or­ing work is car­ried out in accord­ance with rel­ev­ant legislation. The pro­ject oper­ates with­in the Caper­cail­lie Data Shar­ing Policy.	Medi­um No change
8. Pro­ject activ­it­ies con­flict with oth­er ini­ti­at­ives, e.g. wader conservation.	Low	Medi­um	Organ­isa­tions involved in poten­tially con­flict­ing activ­it­ies are pro­ject part­ners rep­res­en­ted on the Oper­a­tion­al Man­age­ment Team and Pro­ject Board, oper­at­ing respect­ively under a Part­ner­ship Agree­ment and Memor­andum of Agreement.	Medi­um No change
9. Con­tin­ued cold and wet weath­er dur­ing caper­cail­lie nest­ing and breed­ing sea­son could over­whelm the bene­fits of the project.	Low	Medi­um	Con­tin­ue deliv­ery — the project’s work is vital to enhance caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al, even in dif­fi­cult years; main­tain pro­act­ive comms intern­ally and extern­ally; review the issue at Pro­ject Board to identi­fy a way forward.	Medi­um No change
10. Genet­ic ana­lys­is reveals caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion in the UK is at risk of becom­ing func­tion­ally extinct.	Low	Medi­um	Con­tin­ue deliv­ery and fast track the action plan­ning work sched­uled in response to the genet­ic ana­lys­is; review the issue at Pro­ject Board to identi­fy a way forward.	Medi­um No change

Budget

Income

	Expec­ted	Received to date
Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund	2,033,600	360,239
CNPA	60,280	50,280
Nature Scot	50,000	35,000
Scot­tish Forestry	28,000	16,000
Forestry Grant Scheme	133,473	0
RSPB	40,000	25,000
RSPB Aber­nethy	10,000	3,080
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	217,347	68,852
Rothiemurchus Estate	41,669	0
Bal­mor­al Estate	11,500	2,500
Bad­den­gorm Woods	48,240	0
Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland	75,000	1,440
Volun­teer time (in-kind)	125,750	37,836
RSPB in-kind (tech­nic­al sup­port for the app and online hub)	27,800	2,193
Total	2,902,659	602,420

Break­down of income / con­tri­bu­tions received

Part­ner / Fun­der	Nature of con­tri­bu­tion	Total to date
Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund	Grant	360,239
CNPA	Dona­tion	50,280
Nature Scot	Dona­tion	35,000
Scot­tish Forestry	Dona­tion	16,000
RSPB	Dona­tion	25,000
RSPB Aber­nethy	Con­tract­or pay­ment — field lay­er sur­vey pri­or to heath­er cutting	3,080
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — fence remov­al & repair pri­or to replanting	36,092
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — ground­work pri­or to felling and replanting	17,460
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Con­tract­or pay­ment — fence remov­al, replace­ment and marking	15,300
Bal­mor­al Estate	Con­tract­or pay­ment — remov­al of 1,100m of deer fence	2,500
Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland	Con­tract­or pay­ment — trail main­ten­ance and inspec­tion training	1,440
Total		562,391

Break­down of volun­teer time (in-kind contribution)

	Total to date
Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group	14,194
Moun­tain bik­ing (Trail Feath­ers) group	11,081
Volun­teers deliv­er­ing hab­it­at improve­ment work	2,064
Caper­cail­lie monitoring	1,746
Digit­al volun­teer (pro­ject web­site design and development)	8,750
Total	37,836

Break­down of expendit­ure / investment

Com­munity	Com­munity-led action	Total
	Revised nation­al caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion estim­ate to help inform action	2,400
	Study of pred­at­or activ­ity in caper­cail­lie areas in Kin­veachy Forest to help inform action	7,260
Car­rbridge	Print­ing and pro­duc­tion of tri­al signs to encour­age respons­ible access in caper­cail­lie areas around Carrbridge	453
	Path sur­veys and feas­ib­il­ity work to enable thriv­ing caper­cail­lie areas around Car­rbridge and paths and out­door spaces for all res­id­ents and vis­it­ors to enjoy	4,965
Total		15,078

Com­munity	Com­munity-led action	Total
	Equip­ment to repair trails to reduce hab­it­at loss and fragmentation	1,146
Moun­tain biking	Print­ing and pro­duc­tion of tri­al signs to encour­age respons­ible rid­ing in caper­cail­lie areas	160
	Trail Asso­ci­ation web­site to increase vis­ib­il­ity, build aware­ness and support	454
Total		1,760

Con­tract­or	Work	Total
High­land Field & Forest / Instinct	Brood sur­veys to help meas­ure impact of hab­it­at improve­ment work, pred­at­or con­trol and com­munity-led action to reduce disturbance	5,172
RZSS	Research­ing the genet­ic diversity of caper­cail­lie in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to inform action	62,768
RZSS	Devel­op­ing a new approach to estim­at­ing the size of the UK caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion using genet­ic material	9,853
James Hut­ton Institute	Eval­u­ation film to share the learn­ing and achieve­ments of the moun­tain bik­ing com­munity; work­ing to deliv­er con­ser­va­tion solu­tions in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park	18,000
The Eval­u­at­or	Mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­at­ing the pro­ject to meas­ure impact and share learning	9,100
The Eval­u­at­or	Research­ing pub­lic atti­tudes and beliefs about the Deeside area and caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion to inform com­munity-led action plan­ning in Deeside	7,443
Her­it­age Pathfind­er Ltd.	Research­ing vis­it­or atti­tudes and beliefs to inform action to enable thriv­ing caper­cail­lie areas and high qual­ity, sus­tain­able vis­it­or experiences	25,000
Total		137,336

Land­hold­ing	Hab­it­at improve­ment work	Total
Aber­nethy	Heath­er cut­ting (with a rob­ocut­ter) to improve c300 ha of habitat	50,000
Bad­den­gorm	Replant­ing wood­land with nat­ive spe­cies to expand habitat	6,800
Bad­den­gorm	Mark­ing fen­cing with wooden mark­ers to avoid collisions	5,000
Bal­mor­al Estate	Heath­er cut­ting, fence remov­al and mark­ing fences with wooden mark­ers to improve c400 ha of hab­it­at and avoid collisions	18,900
Cran­nach Nature Reserve	Heath­er cut­ting to improve habitat	1,290
Lynamer, Nethy Bridge	Restruc­tur­ing wood­lands (remov­ing non-nat­ive trees) to expand habitat	2,673
Rothiemurchus Estate	Screen­ing track­side edges to reduce human disturbance	1,600
Rothiemurchus Estate	Heath­er cut­ting and cre­at­ing grit beds to improve habitat	5,450
Rothiemurchus Estate	Mark­ing fences to avoid collisions	1,600
Rothiemurchus Estate	Pred­at­or con­trol to enhance caper­cail­lie sur­viv­al in key areas	83,315
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Plant­ing nat­ive trees to expand hab­it­at by c90ha	58,290
Seafield and Strath­spey Estates	Remov­ing, repla­cing and mark­ing stra­tegic fences to avoid collisions	15,300
Tombain Plant­a­tion	Mark­ing fen­cing with wooden mark­ers to avoid collisions	4,944
Total		255,162

Pro­ject staff	Work	Total *
Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Assist­ant (P/T)	Caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing to inform work and meas­ure impact	44,700
Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer (P/T)	Stra­tegic sup­port for caper­cail­lie mon­it­or­ing & hab­it­at improvement	59,350
Com­mu­nic­a­tions Officer (P/T)	Rais­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing about caper­cail­lie & the project	91,350
Car­rbridge Com­munity Ranger	Sup­port­ing Car­rbridge com­munity-led action	103,150
Game­keep­er	Pred­at­or con­trol on Seafield Estate	168,014
High­land Devel­op­ment Co-Ordinator	Stra­tegic sup­port for com­munity-led action	40,000
Pro­ject Coordin­at­or (P/T)	Sup­port­ing pro­ject deliv­ery and provid­ing admin­is­tra­tion support	77,200
Pro­ject Manager	Man­aging the pro­ject as a whole, includ­ing staff and contractors	170,700
Pro­ject Officer (P/T)	Sup­port­ing pro­ject delivery	105,900
Total		860,364
> * Total salary, equip­ment and over­head costs for the deliv­ery phase, i.e. 3 years (2020 — 2023)