CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

Title: Update on pro­mo­tion of respons­ible out­door access in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Pre­pared by: Adam Streeter-Smith, Out­door Access Officer Pur­pose: I. To update mem­bers on the work under­taken to date pro­mot­ing respons­ible access in the Park.

1. To seek advice on key pri­or­ity mes­sages in the Park

2. To seek advice on site spe­cif­ic advice with regards to inform­al camp­ing and campfires

Back­ground

1. The Park Author­ity has a duty to pro­mote the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code. ​“Tread Lightly in the Park” is the main cam­paign (see annex I) by which the Park Author­ity and its part­ners, Ranger Ser­vices, Vis­it Cairngorms and land man­agers, pro­mote key mes­sages on what the exer­cise of respons­ible access looks like in the Park. The key mes­sages in ​“tread lightly” agreed by the LOAF, ranger ser­vices and key part­ners at the end of 2019 were:
   • Respons­ible dog walking
   • Camp­fires
   • Out­door cooking
   • Bik­ing and:
   • Lit­ter.

2020- Reflec­tions

1. 2020 for many reas­ons was an unpre­ced­en­ted year with hot­spots across the Park exper­i­en­cing high levels of inform­al camp­ing, fire light­ing and lit­ter. Col­lect­ively Ranger Ser­vices across the Park with the sup­port of the CNPA Sea­son­al Ranger Ser­vice engaged with a lot of vis­it­ors. In their con­ver­sa­tions with vis­it­ors the fol­low­ing themes star­ted to emerge:
   • A gen­er­al lack of aware­ness of the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code
   • Strong cul­tur­al norms i.e. tra­di­tions round fires and fam­ily gatherings
   • A desire to behave respons­ibly but act­ing out of misinformation
   • A need for con­sist­ency of mes­sage from a vari­ety of sources

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

2021- Mov­ing for­ward- revised mes­sages and site spe­cif­ic messages

1. Across Scot­land pub­lic agen­cies, the Police and oth­er key part­ners are look­ing to devel­op a more coordin­ated approach to vis­it­or man­age­ment in terms of head­line mes­sages, infra­struc­ture and reg­u­la­tion. The CNPA and key loc­al part­ners such as the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship and NatureScot are heav­ily involved in this process.

2. At a nation­al level the key driver is to raise aware­ness of the code and the key ten­ants of care, respect and respons­ib­il­ity and to devel­op cam­paigns around par­tic­u­lar activ­it­ies such as camp­ing and dog own­er­ship. Key to the suc­cess of these cam­paigns is that they dove­tail with ​“loc­al” advice in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.

3. In dis­cus­sions with key part­ners and Ranger Ser­vices the key focus for code mes­saging in the Park in 2021 needs to focus on dog own­er­ship, inform­al camp­ing and fires. Annex 2 sets out the oppor­tun­ity to amend the exist­ing TLitP mes­sages mak­ing them more spe­cif­ic and directive.

What are member’s views on key pri­or­ity mes­sages in the Park?

Mov­ing towards a stronger mes­sage for key hotspots

1. Recog­nising that some hot­spots in the Park exper­i­ence excess­ive amounts of inform­al camp­ing and camp­fires and their asso­ci­ated prob­lems there is a clear need to devel­op site spe­cif­ic advice to mit­ig­ate against the cumu­lat­ive impacts. This could include ​“no fires” and/​or ​“camp for one night only”.

2. As the Access Author­ity we feel this is jus­ti­fied and com­pet­ent under the aus­pices of the Land Reform (Scot­land) Act and Scot­tish Out­door Access Code.

3. In 2010, the CLOAF sup­por­ted the use of word­ing to ​“Keep your dog on a lead dur­ing the ground nest­ing bird breed­ing sea­son”. Mem­bers agreed with the prin­ciple that in order to pro­mote respons­ible dog own­er­ship, mes­sages needed to be clear and con­sist­ent across the Nation­al Park. Word­ing exists with­in the code (p.106) that can remove this ambi­gu­ity and allow for clear­er mes­sages to be used.

4. The Nation­al Access For­um guid­ance on man­aging access and ground nest­ing birds backs this up. It states that if approaches based on site plan­ning and design, and on pro­mot­ing respons­ible beha­viour, have been thor­oughly explored and evid­ence indic­ates that these have been inad­equate to meet con­ser­va­tion oblig­a­tions, site man­agers may at that stage con­sider addi­tion­al meas­ures. Such pro­pos­als would be likely to involve ​‘stronger’ requests to visitors.

5. Such meas­ures could, in prin­ciple, be open to leg­al chal­lenge under sec­tions 14 and/​or 28 of the LRA. Their robust­ness to such chal­lenge would largely depend on clear evid­ence of need and pro­por­tion­al­ity, and on the con­sensus in sup­port of their adop­tion — in par­tic­u­lar on the sup­port of the access authority.

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

1. It will be a mat­ter for Police Scot­land to determ­ine if con­duct out­with of this advice is excluded from access rights because an offense is being committed.

2. To ensure such changes in advice at a site level are robust and have con­sensus it is pro­posed that a simple test is deployed, see annex 3, which sets out the key cri­ter­ia for site spe­cif­ic advice.

Are mem­bers con­tent that a more robust line of access advice can be taken at key hotspots?

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

Annex I- Tread Lightly in the Park To con­vey these mes­sages to the pub­lic the Park Author­ity developed the fol­low­ing resources:

• A con­cer­tina leaflet;
• A3 fold leaf­let for Land­mark leaf­let units;
• Flash cards for use on social media;
• High fire risk posters for point of sale locations;
• Sea­son­al advis­ory signs in the stand­ard SNH sign template;
• Bespoke sea­son­al sig­nage for Boat Woods;
• Webpage;
• Power­Point present­a­tion for Duke of Edin­burgh Award groups in Aberdeenshire.

These key cam­paign mes­sages are also con­veyed through the following:

• Reg­u­lar social media posts on Act­ive Cairngorms twit­ter and Facebook;
• Act­ive Cairngorm’s E‑bulletin;
• Press;
• Lego films;
• CNPA Comms dur­ing April;
• Spe­cies spotlights.

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

Annex 2 Draft key mes­sages for 2021

Tar­get Audi­ence	Cur­rent Mes­sage	Draft Revised Message
Dog own­ers	From April to August, keep your dog on a short lead or close to heel in areas of ground nest­ing birds. Avoid fields with live­stock — par­tic­u­larly young anim­als. Clean up after your dog. Put any waste in a bin, or take it away. In more remote areas, remove it off the path. | From April to August, keep your dog on a short lead or close to heel on moor­land and the open hills. In wood­lands with caper­cail­lie, please fol­low all sig­nage and keep you dog on a lead as reques­ted. On farm­land, please do not enter fields with young anim­als and avoid fields with cattle and sheep if you can.
Inform­al campers	Pitch your tent well away from cars, roads or build­ings. Keep the num­bers of your group small. Move on after a couple of nights. Remove traces of your camp­ing site and any lit­ter. Carry out what you carry in. | Please fol­low all on site sig­nage and advice from rangers. * To camp respons­ibly do so away from roads and build­ings, keep your group small and remove all traces of your camp­site includ­ing litter.
Camp fires	Nev­er light a fire dur­ing pro­longed dry peri­ods or in wood­lands or on peaty soils. Nev­er cut down or dam­age trees. Keep fires small, under con­trol and super­vised at all times. Ensure a fire is com­pletely out and remove all traces of it. | Do your bit for nature and choose not to light a fire, please use a camp­ing stove instead. Nev­er light a fire in wood­lands or on peaty soils. Nev­er cut down or dam­age trees.

CAIRNGORMS LOC­AL OUT­DOOR ACCESS FORUM

PAPER 1: 24^th Feb­ru­ary 2021

Annex 3 DRAFT con­sid­er­a­tions for time lim­ited site based advice: If most of the answers are ​“yes” then a more robust time lim­ited site based advice can be supported.

Test	Y/N
Is the loc­a­tion a clearly defined and recog­nised ​‘hot­spot’ in the area vis­it­or man­age­ment plan?
Is the loc­a­tion an envir­on­ment­ally des­ig­nated site?
Has the impact of inform­al camp­ing and irre­spons­ible beha­viour been mon­itored and repor­ted over mul­tiple seasons?
Is their strong evid­ence of envir­on­ment­al dam­age or breach of the peace caused by the cumu­lat­ive impact of irre­spons­ible beha­viour (uncon­trolled fires, crim­in­al dam­age, fly tip­ping etc)?
Is there evid­ence of altern­at­ive approaches to vis­it­or man­age­ment being tested (sig­nage, engage­ment, enhanced facil­it­ies etc)?
Are there suit­able altern­at­ives nearby?
Is there a long-term plan for improv­ing vis­it­or man­age­ment at the site?
Is the site covered by a Ranger Service?
Has the LOAF been con­sul­ted on the proposal?

Any decision to sup­port robust time lim­ited site based advice will have to be approved by the CNPA Man­age­ment Team.