231208PerfCtteePaper3BringingBackBeaverProject

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 1 of 6

For dis­cus­sion

Title: Bring­ing Back Beaver Project

Pre­pared By: Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or for Nature & Cli­mate Change

Pur­pose This paper presents the latest deliv­ery updates on the Bring­ing Back Beavers Project.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee is asked to review deliv­ery updates and con­sider: a) pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives; b) any stra­tegic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant impacts on deliv­ery of the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Authority’s Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan; c) any mater­i­al impacts on the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk management.

Per­form­ance Dashboard

Pro­ject vis­ion: A healthy pop­u­la­tion of beavers in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, bring­ing max­im­um bene­fits for wild­life and people. This includes sup­port­ing land man­agers and com­munit­ies to live along­side beavers.

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of beaver eco­logy, beha­viour, pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive impacts and inter­ac­tion with land­scapes and wild­life in the Nation­al Park.	Green	Inform­al engage­ment star­ted in March 2023 with a series of four beaver bleth­er drop-ins and ended at the Grant­own Show in August 2023. Loc­al farm­ers, land man­agers and res­id­ents were tar­geted to raise aware­ness and under­stand­ing of beaver eco­logy and the Park Author­ity approach. Event were sup­por­ted by NatureScot, Nation­al Farm­ing Uni­on Scot­land, Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive and the Beaver Trust. Bleth­ers were fol­lowed up with a series of site vis­its and indi­vidu­al meet­ings on request.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 2 of 6

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Release beaver fam­il­ies into the Upper Spey catch­ment to cre­ate a founder pop­u­la­tion to estab­lish a thriv­ing, sus­tain­able population.	Green	Feed­back from early aware­ness rais­ing informed the form­al 6 week con­sulta­tion peri­od from 14 August to 25 Septem­ber. The form­al con­sulta­tion peri­od included a fur­ther 6 drop in events tar­geted at groups that would be most dir­ectly affected (land man­agers, fish­er­ies interests and the busi­ness com­munity) as well as being open to a wider res­id­ent audi­ence. Staff and part­ners went on 37 site vis­its with farm­ers and land man­agers and held 24 meet­ings with stake­hold­ers. The online sur­vey, from 515 responses, showed 75.8% sup­port for the pro­posed rein­tro­duc­tion. Inform­al and form­al engage­ment was pro­moted via the webpage, launched in Feb­ru­ary 2023, posters and leaf­lets, 5 press releases, 8 art­icles in the Badenoch & Strath­spey Her­ald, 2 edi­tions of the Cairn magazine and across the Park Author­ity and part­ners’ social media out­lets. The full, 45 page engage­ment report can be viewed as part of the licence applic­a­tion on the webpage.
	Green	The licence applic­a­tion for release over the next five years into the Upper Spey catch­ment has been sub­mit­ted to NatureScot. The licence applic­a­tion includes com­pre­hens­ive eco­lo­gic­al inform­a­tion includ­ing HRA, SEA, pop­u­la­tion mod­el­ling and site suit­ab­il­ity assess­ments; the full engage­ment and con­sulta­tion activ­it­ies over 9 months; and a mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 3 of 6

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Sup­port­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of a mit­ig­a­tion scheme in the Nation­al Park, ensur­ing issues are dealt with in a timely and effi­cient man­ner in such a way that land man­agers and com­munit­ies are sup­por­ted to live along­side beaver.	Green	Poten­tial release sites are in a state of read­i­ness. Landown­ers / man­agers are fully briefed and well pre­pared for the res­ult of the applic­a­tion decision. Beavers from the Tay­side pop­u­la­tion have been iden­ti­fied for trap­ping and trans­lo­ca­tion with health screen­ing arranged. The Park Authority’s mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan is set out in the licence applic­a­tion. Resource is avail­able with­in the staff team to sup­port the mit­ig­a­tion plan. Excel­lent part­ner rela­tions are in place with all iden­ti­fied release sites and neigh­bour­ing land­hold­ings. The plan has been developed by build­ing on the nation­al mit­ig­a­tion scheme with addi­tion­al resource provided by Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity. The addi­tion­al resource is applied to cov­er points raised in the con­sulta­tion, largely around redu­cing response times and increas­ing the ease of access­ing and apply­ing mit­ig­a­tion tech­niques. Addi­tion­al Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity budget is secured to fund small scale remedi­al and mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures at a site level. Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity will pay for dam­age to flood bank, where proven to be caused by beavers, until 2026.
Max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for envir­on­ment­al and socio-eco­nom­ic bene­fits from beavers.	Green	The Park Author­ity has sup­por­ted the land man­ager at one of the first release sites with vis­it­or man­age­ment and inform­a­tion to provide a high qual­ity nature-based tour­ism offering

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 4 of 6

Per­form­ance Meas­ure: Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary
Imple­ment a research and mon­it­or­ing plan to provide an evid­ence base for the pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive impacts of beaver.	Green	Pre-release engage­ment included work with the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship to raise aware­ness of beaver related tour­ism ad busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies. There have been pos­it­ive con­ver­sa­tions with oth­er poten­tial release sites about oppor­tun­it­ies for eco-tour­ism. The Park Author­ity has com­mis­sioned a sur­vey of flood­banks on the river Spey. Fresh­wa­ter inver­teb­rate sur­vey are being car­ried out at release sites. The Park Author­ity is work­ing with a flood­plain farm­er to estab­lish an evid­ence based case study, gath­er­ing hydro­lo­gic­al and eco­lo­gic­al data. Work is under­way with Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive to estab­lish a research and mon­it­or­ing pro­gramme spe­cif­ic to fish­er­ies issues.

Stra­tegic Background

1. In June 2022 Board the Park Author­ity Board agreed that the Park Author­ity take a lead role in mak­ing an applic­a­tion for beaver trans­lo­ca­tion. The Park Authority’s stra­tegic object­ives of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of the deliv­ery of the pro­gramme report­ing presen­ted with this paper are: α) The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan action to ​‘Facil­it­ate beaver trans­lo­ca­tion in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’ and the asso­ci­ated Cor­por­ate Plan object­ive to ​‘lead on beaver reintroduction’.

2. Stra­tegic risks of rel­ev­ance to con­sid­er­a­tion of the pro­gramme report­ing presen­ted with this paper are: α) A1 Resources: pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances con­strain capa­city to alloc­ate suf­fi­cient resources to deliv­er cor­por­ate plan.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 5 of 6

b) A27 Stra­tegic deliv­ery: Approaches to con­ser­va­tion and pro­tec­tion of endangered spe­cies may be insuf­fi­cient to achieve asso­ci­ated stra­tegic outcomes.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery Against Stra­tegic Expectations

1. The pro­ject is on track to deliv­er the Board recom­mend­a­tion. Pos­it­ive pro­gress has been made against all pro­ject object­ives in line with the pro­ject times­cales and with­in budget expectations.

2. The pro­ject is embed­ded in the activ­it­ies of Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity and part­ners in deliv­er­ing the wider Cor­por­ate Plan and Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan actions for spe­cies recov­ery, eco­sys­tem res­tor­a­tion, future farm­ing and devel­op­ing a more com­plete under­stand­ing of the Nation­al Park’s spe­cies, hab­it­ats and ecosystems.

3. Activ­it­ies to inform Park Author­ity stra­tegic plan­ning and embed the pro­ject object­ives in the wider work of the Park Author­ity and part­ners include: α) Work with Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity rangers to sup­port their com­mu­nic­a­tion role with res­id­ents and vis­it­ors; and enable rangers to identi­fy beaver field signs and mon­it­or activ­ity in the Park. b) Work in tan­dem with Com­mu­nic­a­tion team in design­ing and deliv­er­ing the engage­ment pro­gramme c) Integ­ra­tion with­in the con­ser­va­tion team, not­ably with the farm advisor, fresh­wa­ter eco­lo­gist, Cairngorms 2030 and Cairngorms Nature Index pro­ject. d) The Cairngorms Beaver group is a sub-group of the Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group. Part­ners in the group rep­res­ent land man­agers, farm­ers, fish­er­ies boards, Envir­on­ment­al NGOs and pub­lic bod­ies. The group plays an import­ant role in integ­rat­ing the pro­ject into the work of key stakeholders.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Risks Under Management

1. Stra­tegic Deliv­ery: The pro­ject vis­ion is for a healthy and sus­tain­able pop­u­la­tion. The applic­a­tion is for release over the next 5 years in mul­tiple loc­a­tions to estab­lish a founder pop­u­la­tion. If releases are inter­rup­ted dur­ing this peri­od, there is a risk the pop­u­la­tion is not suf­fi­cient to achieve this object­ive. Beaver release is only con­sidered for loc­a­tions and times of year when spe­cial­ist advice and expert­ise recom­mend a very low risk of mor­tal­ity. There is a pos­sib­il­ity that

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ugh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 8 Decem­ber 2023 Page 6 of 6

young kits are pred­ated, only in extreme cir­cum­stances would this have an unsus­tain­able impact on a population.

1. Staff­ing and resourcing: The pro­ject is cur­rently oper­at­ing with a high level of demand on staff resource, primar­ily asso­ci­ated with the extens­ive com­mu­nic­a­tions and engage­ment pro­gramme and asso­ci­ated impacts on seni­or staff sup­port. The high demand of intens­ive staff resource is pre­dicted to decrease once the decision is made on the applic­a­tion and, if suc­cess­ful, fol­low­ing release. Cur­rent levels of engage­ment and com­mu­nic­a­tions are not sus­tain­able but with a more nor­mal activ­ity pre­dicted, staff capa­city is suf­fi­cient to achieve objectives.

The mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan is centred on the Park Authority’s abil­ity to react quickly and effect­ively. Cur­rent staff­ing levels are suf­fi­cient with­in the pre­dicted release schedule.

Oper­a­tion­al budget for engage­ment work, baseline mon­it­or­ing and pre-empt­ive mit­ig­a­tion in 2023 / 2024 is on track. The 2024 / 2025 budget for mit­ig­a­tion and mon­it­or­ing is with­in the capa­city of the Oper­a­tion­al Plan fore­cast. Poten­tial addi­tion­al cap­it­al require­ments relat­ing to flood­bank repair is with­in the envel­ope of the Park Authority’s cap­it­al budget.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review

1. There are no mat­ters of stra­tegic sig­ni­fic­ance which mer­it escal­a­tion at this time in the opin­ion of seni­or man­agers lead­ing the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s link­age to the areas of activ­ity covered by this paper and asso­ci­ated reports.

Andy Ford andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk