240913Paper1 CEO Report

For Inform­a­tion

Title: CEO Report and Con­vener Update Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Pur­pose To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

1. Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund — £370,000 was awar­ded to 18 pro­jects help­ing land man­agers, com­munit­ies and busi­nesses mit­ig­ate for and adapt to cli­mate change. They included nature-based solu­tions to reduce the impacts of flood­ing and droughts, equip­ment and train­ing to deal with wild­fire, and sol­ar pan­els, bat­tery stor­age and insu­la­tion to reduce Green­house Gas emis­sions. A full list of the pro­jects is on the Park Author­ity website.
2. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion – Pro­gress is on tar­get to bring approx­im­ately 1500 hec­tares (ha) of peat­land into res­tor­a­tion in ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅. Work is com­pleted on two pro­jects and under­way on a fur­ther 13. These include two new entrant pro­jects and con­tract­or capa­city for peat­land work con­tin­ues to expand. Private invest­ment is con­trib­ut­ing to the costs of five pro­jects this year and we will seek to encour­age fur­ther private invest­ment in the future. Matt Wat­son left as Peat­land Pro­gramme Man­ager to return to private sec­tor peat­land pro­jects. He has been replaced by Daisy Whytock who will take up her new role in September.
3. Caper­cail­lie – The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie pro­ject has con­cluded. The pro­ject has marked or removed over 13 kilo­metres of fen­cing, pion­eered new meth­ods of mon­it­or­ing sens­it­ive spe­cies, cre­ated the UKs first com­munity-led action plan for caper­cail­lie, reduced dis­turb­ance in over 450ha of high qual­ity hab­it­at by re-align­ing moun­tain bike trails, cre­ated Lek it Be cham­pi­ons safe­guard­ing leks, and brought togeth­er a diverse part­ner­ship of over 25 organ­isa­tions, groups and volun­teers who have donated over 4,000 hours of their time to caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion. Achieve­ments are more fully doc­u­mented in Pro­ject Overview.
4. Deer man­age­ment — the Com­mon Ground For­um is a nation­al ini­ti­at­ive that aims to improve rela­tions amongst all stake­hold­ers in the deer sec­tor. A recent event at Feal­ar Estate attrac­ted around 90 stalk­ers from all over Scot­land, includ­ing from 11 estates with­in the Nation­al Park. The Park Author­ity part fun­ded the event, the CEO took part in a pan­el dis­cus­sion, and Park Author­ity staff sit on both the Steer­ing Group and the Stalker’s Group which organ­ised the event.

In ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ the Park Author­ity will run a scheme to incentiv­ise high­er hind culls across the Nation­al Park through a pay­ment which increases the price for each car­case culled above cer­tain thresholds. This scheme has been developed and well pub­li­cised through Deer Man­age­ment Groups and will be open to all estates from October.

1. Beaver — The six fam­il­ies or pairs released at three sites in ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ have moved around explor­ing their ter­rit­or­ies, before estab­lish­ing them­selves on or near the release sites. The com­pre­hens­ive mon­it­or­ing pro­gramme of cam­er­as, patrols, sight­ings, reports from land man­agers, and river sur­veys is work­ing well. Two poten­tial issues were repor­ted to the Park Author­ity and the man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan was suc­cess­fully imple­men­ted, to the sat­is­fac­tion of all con­cerned, on both occa­sions. The flood bank sur­vey is due to be com­pleted by the end of September.

Plans are nearly final­ised for the Septem­ber 2024 – March 2025 release sea­son. Sur­veys, assess­ments and land man­ager liais­on are under­way on a poten­tial four new release sites with­in the licence area.

1. Nature Net­works – In part­ner­ship with Trees for Life the Park Author­ity has appoin­ted a Cairngorms Aspen Officer (hos­ted by Trees for Life). This role is devel­op­ing a spa­tial plan for deliv­ery of an aspen net­work across the Nation­al Park. Identi­fy­ing pri­or­ity sites, man­age­ment require­ments and plant­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to increase the con­nectiv­ity and resi­li­ence of the aspen and its reli­ant pri­or­ity species.

Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel

1. Paths and long-dis­tance routes – A con­tract has been let to replace sig­nage on the sec­tion of Spey­side Way north of Aviemore to the Nation­al Park bound­ary, to bring sig­nage up to the same stand­ards used for new­er sec­tion of the route towards New­ton­more. A con­tract to improve one short sec­tion of Spey­side Way with steep gradi­ents has been let and will improve access­ib­il­ity. Anoth­er con­tract has been let to assess and identi­fy Improve­ment options for people access­ing the river Spey.

Work on the Charters Chest (Brae­mar – Kei­loch) path com­menced in spring with phase two due to be com­pleted in late August and phase three from Old Brig o’ Dee to the Kei­loch junc­tion due for com­ple­tion by the end of September.

Fund­ing has been provided to the Out­door Access Trust Scot­land for path works on Meall a Bhua­chaille which will involve tri­al­ling new tech­niques that bet­ter cater for increased use by moun­tain bikes and e‑bikes. A new GIS based record of all Core paths con­tin­ues to be cre­ated with 200 of the 265 low ground paths (75%) sur­veyed by mid-August.

1. Ranger ser­vices — We con­tin­ued to recruit sea­son­al rangers until July to replace three sea­son­al rangers who moved on to oth­er roles. This means we cur­rently have five per­man­ent, 11 sea­son­al and three train­ee rangers in post. We par­ti­cip­ated in a part­ner­ship train­ing ses­sion with Police Scot­land in Deeside on respons­ible coun­tryside access and deal­ing with chal­len­ging beha­viour. The gen­er­ally poor weath­er in com­par­is­on to recent sum­mers appears to have reduced levels of poor beha­viour although vis­it­or num­bers remain high with some not­able spikes.
2. Vis­it­or infra­struc­ture – £250,000 of grant aid has been provided to part­ners to deliv­er infra­struc­ture pro­jects with a fur­ther £100,000 to be spent dir­ectly includ­ing on improve­ments to the Old Log­ging Way.
3. Volun­teer­ing and health walks – Volun­teer rangers, includ­ing those that com­pleted train­ing in spring 2024 have been out on the ground wel­com­ing vis­it­ors and feed­ing back inform­a­tion on any issues arising so these can be addressed. Four volun­teer­ing events with third sec­tor part­ners have been held since April provid­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for 146 people. Green Health refer­rals con­tin­ue to be made by GPs with 41 now referred and four hav­ing now com­pleted their Nature Pre­scrip­tion. A Badenoch and Strath­spey Green Health Net­work gath­er­ing has been organ­ised for the end of August
4. Act­ive and sus­tain­able trans­port – Applic­a­tions to Sus­trans Places for Every­one Fund were sub­mit­ted in early 2024 for fund­ing to take for­ward the next stages of design work for a num­ber of com­munit­ies. Trans­port Scot­land fund­ing con­straints mean these have yet to be awar­ded any fund­ing des­pite being deemed accept­able. Work is how­ever con­tinu­ing on the tender spe­cific­a­tions so that this work can be con­trac­ted once fund­ing is secured. Work has con­tin­ued on the design of the cycle friendly Cairngorms and beha­viour change pro­jects. Pro­gress includes com­ple­tion of cycle lead­er train­ing for the beha­viour change officer, cycle hub design work under way and the first con­tract for deliv­ery of schemes such as shared bikes and main­ten­ance and skills work­shops is being tendered dur­ing September.

Plan­ning and Rur­al Development

1. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Work con­tin­ues on build­ing the evid­ence base for the next Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (Have Your Say Today — Cairngorms Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan — Com­mon­place), with engage­ment on evid­ence top­ic papers and staff attend­ing pub­lic engage­ment ses­sions and loc­al events.

2. Plan­ning case­work — The Plan­ning Com­mit­tee have only met once, on 9 August, since the last Board meet­ing on 28 June, and approved a num­ber of applic­a­tions includ­ing four ret­ro­spect­ive applic­a­tions, changes to estab­lished hous­ing pro­jects and vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture at Cairngorm Moun­tain. A plan­ning applic­a­tion for a new tele­coms mast in Glen­more was recently with­drawn and anoth­er for a new mast near Ryvoan bothy has gen­er­ated sig­ni­fic­ant pub­lic interest, with more than 520 objec­tions received.

3. Well­being eco­nomy — The ​‘Your Future Here’ event rur­al careers event was held on 12 Septem­ber 2024 try­ing to give people inter­ested careers In the area insight and oppor­tun­ity to access the diverse rur­al career oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able in the Nation­al Park and wider region.
4. Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er – The Cairngorms Busi­ness Baro­met­er has now been run­ning for 15 years and the Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship are host­ing an online event on 18 Septem­ber 2024 that looks back at the trends over that peri­od as well as shar­ing the most recent res­ults ana­lysed by 56 Degree Insight, the con­tract­ors cur­rently under­tak­ing the survey.
5. Vis­it­or and res­id­ents’ sur­veys — Both vis­it­or sur­vey and the first Nation­al Park res­id­ents sur­vey have star­ted. Early ana­lys­is of responses will start in the autumn.
6. Com­munity Led Loc­al Devel­op­ment – The Cairngorms Trust, sup­por­ted by the Park Author­ity, has com­mit­ted its ini­tial alloc­a­tion of £260,000 in fund­ing for com­munity led loc­al devel­op­ment activ­it­ies and grant awards over the ²⁰²⁴⁄₂₅ fin­an­cial year.

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

1. Act­ive Cairngorms – We’ve over­seen a busy media and social media sched­ule over the past few months, includ­ing a refined vis­it­or man­age­ment cam­paign, a cel­eb­ra­tion of our peat­land work for World Peat­lands Day, Inverness Pride and an update on loc­al green health initiatives.

More sub­stant­ive updates include an update on tick and lyme dis­ease aware­ness, an update on an Afford Academy com­munity garden pro­ject fea­tur­ing inter­views with young people as part of Cairngorms 2030, and the screen­ing of Six Inches of Soil, reflect­ing the ongo­ing engage­ment work being under­taken with farm­ers and crofters.

1. Cairngorms Nature – In mid-May we launched a new £370,000 Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, with suc­cess­ful applic­ants revealed at the end of July in a news release fea­tur­ing a quote from Rur­al Affairs Sec­ret­ary Mairi Gougeon. The story was covered by the Strath­spey and Badenoch Her­ald, Angus­World, Farm­ers’ Guard­i­an and BBC Scotland.

In July we partnered with 14 nation­al parks across the UK to announce our com­mit­ment to the UN-backed Race to Zero ini­ti­at­ive, aim­ing to halve our col­lect­ive car­bon emis­sions by 2030 and become sig­ni­fic­ant net car­bon sinks by 2050. The piece was covered in The Her­ald, The Nation­al, BBC Scot­land and in vari­ous busi­ness-facing pub­lic­a­tions such as Busi­ness Green.

Andy Ford took part in a pod­cast dis­cus­sion with the James Hut­ton Insti­tute in July, cent­ring around the impacts of cli­mate change on the Nation­al Park.

1. Pub­lic and stake­hold­er engage­ment – Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment announced in July that Gal­lo­way has been con­firmed as the pro­posed loc­a­tion for a new Nation­al Park. The story was covered extens­ively across print, online and broad­cast media, includ­ing Sky News, BBC, The Guard­i­an, The Inde­pend­ent, The Sun, The Nation­al and Scot­tish Field. We were approached by vari­ous out­lets, includ­ing The Times, for com­ment, and issued our own update on the news across social media.

The Your Future Here careers’ fair took up a sig­ni­fic­ant amount of both the Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment teams’ time over the sum­mer, work­ing closely with Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land. Due to take place on 12 Septem­ber 2024 at Aviemore High­land Resort, the event will fea­ture prac­tic­al work­shops and demon­stra­tions from over 30 part­ners, break­out spaces for one-to-one chats, as well as live job and train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. At the time of writ­ing, nearly 200 young people had signed up to join us on the day.

With the full Cairngorms 2030 engage­ment team now in place, we have been busy deliv­er­ing sum­mer events across the Nation­al Park. The events – includ­ing Tomin­toul and New­ton­more High­land Games, the Grant­own Show and a Car­rbridge road­show – were well atten­ded (around 500 people across all events), with mem­bers of the pub­lic stay­ing on the stands for a con­cer­ted peri­od of time, eg around 30 – 40 minutes in the case of Car­rbridge. Once the sum­mer pro­gramme is com­pleted, the team will review all our activ­it­ies – and res­id­ent feed­back – to ensure our engage­ment is as effect­ive as pos­sible going forward.

The first issue of a new agri­cul­tur­al news­let­ter was pub­lished in mid-May, fea­tur­ing the Six Inches of Soil film screen­ing, details of the Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund, inform­a­tion on farm machinery and equip­ment hire, and an update on the goose man­age­ment tri­al. The next edi­tion is likely to go out in September.

To coin­cide with the rol­lout of our usu­al vis­it­or sur­vey pro­cess, we launched a new res­id­ents’ sur­vey this July, which will gath­er res­id­ents’ views on a range of sub­jects rel­ev­ant to the Nation­al Park, as well as help­ing us bet­ter under­stand the exper­i­ences and per­spect­ives of people liv­ing and work­ing in the Cairngorms. We will pub­lish res­ults of both this and the vis­it­or sur­vey in full on our web­site once they are available.

1. Cor­por­ate com­mu­nic­a­tions – News stor­ies over the peri­od included a fire man­age­ment update fol­low­ing the last board meet­ing; the announce­ment of our Your Future Here rur­al skills careers’ fair; the start of the Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan con­sulta­tion; comms around the 100 rangers we have on the ground this sum­mer; an update on peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­gress for World Peat­lands Day; and a piece on the nature pre­scrip­tions pro­ject as part of Cairngorms 2030.

2. Web­site and social media – The web­site devel­op­ment pro­ject is pro­gress­ing accord­ing to sched­ule, with the design phase now com­plete and a work­ing pro­to­type now up and run­ning. We are explor­ing the applic­a­tion of Al to help cat­egor­ise and search pdf-based con­tent, mak­ing the site more access­ible eg to screen read­er users. The next stage of the pro­cess is con­tent cre­ation, and a ded­ic­ated Web­site Work­ing Group has been cre­ated, with rep­res­ent­at­ives from across the organ­isa­tion to help pop­u­late the site.

Between 01 May and 29 July, we reached over one mil­lion impres­sions on social media (up 11% on 2023), 46,721 engage­ments (up 96.9%), 54,302 video views (up 35%) and an engage­ment rate of 4.6% (up 76% on 12 months ago). Our total audi­ence grew 384% to 57,771, with Linked­In being our fast­est grow­ing platform.

The team has also been tri­al­ling more dir­ect engage­ment / inter­ac­tion with spe­cif­ic posts on our social media feeds (both pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive). Whilst it is early days, this has def­in­itely con­trib­uted to the growth in engage­ment across plat­forms, albeit it remains resource intens­ive, and we will need to be select­ive on when and where we engage.

1. Brand­ing and pub­lic­a­tions – The sum­mer edi­tion of Cairn magazine hit door­steps week com­men­cing 15 July. This issue includes fea­tures on Nation­al Park-wide ranger activ­ity and our rur­al skills con­fer­ence com­ing up in Septem­ber, plus art­icles on farm­ing sup­port, pearl mus­sel con­ser­va­tion, fire byelaws and inform­a­tion on our new res­id­ents’ survey.

Three large-scale inter­pret­a­tion pro­jects have recently con­cluded: the launch of the new wild­life dis­cov­ery centre at the High­land Wild­life Park (which we grant aided £90,000 to and provided sub­stant­ive feed­back on); an interi­or refresh of the vis­it­or centre at Blair Atholl and the launch of a new Beaver Trail at Rothiemurchus.

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

1. Work­force Man­age­ment — Recruit­ment of the Cairngorms 2030 posts, sea­son­al rangers and exist­ing new and vacant posts has been very busy since Janu­ary but is com­ing to an end with all posts suc­cess­fully recruited.

2. Staff­ing update — Since June 2024 a) Staff leav­ing the organ­isa­tion were: i. Tony Seivwright. Sea­son­al Ranger, new job. ii. Amber Beange, Con­tent Cre­ation Intern, end of short-term con­tract. iii. Lewis Pâté, Farm­land Con­ser­va­tion Officer, new job. iv. Sarah Fletch­er, Plan­ning Officer (Devel­op­ment Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Advice), new job. V. Kar­en Ald­ridge, Plan­ning Officer, new job. b) Staff join­ing the organ­isa­tion were: i. Eilidh Todd joined the Park Author­ity on second­ment from South of Scot­land Enter­prise. Eilidh has been appoin­ted to the Rur­al Devel­op­ment and Com­munit­ies Man­ager (Mater­nity Cov­er) post. ii. Mikko Saari joined us in the new post of Pro­cure­ment Officer. iii. Dav­id Berry, Head of Plan­ning. Dav­id pre­vi­ously worked for the Park Author­ity as Plan­ning Man­ager (For­ward Plan­ning). He left in 2019 to work for Aber­deen City Council’s plan­ning depart­ment to expand his skills. iv. Kaye Nicolson, Media Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager, new post developed from vacancy cre­ated when the press officer left. V. Sea­son­al Rangers appoin­ted later in the sea­son due to posts becom­ing vacant were Mhairi Hume, Sarah Stevens and Heath­er Palo­mino (who has pre­vi­ously volun­teered for the Park Author­ity as a Volun­teer Ranger) c) Staff appoint­ments, fol­low­ing a robust Intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess, were: i. Danny O’Brien, appoin­ted to the role of Volun­teer­ing Man­ager (Mater­nity Cov­er). Danny has worked for the Park Author­ity as a Sea­son­al Ranger for the past three sea­sons, hav­ing ori­gin­ally joined us in 2021 as a Train­ee Ranger. ii. Sarah Lawth­er, appoin­ted to the role of Out­door Access Officer filling a career break vacancy. Sarah has worked for the Park Author­ity as a Sea­son­al Ranger since 2023. iii. Daisy Whytock was appoin­ted to the Peat­land Action Pro­gramme Man­ager post, repla­cing Matt Wat­son. Pre­vi­ously, Daisy was a Peat­land Officer. d) Oth­er staff changes: i. Fiona McIn­ally (Rur­al Devel­op­ment and Com­munit­ies Man­ager) and Becky Wilson (Volun­teer­ing Man­ager) both went on mater­nity leave.

3. Youth employ­ment a) Four Train­ee Rangers were appoin­ted as fol­lows: Jade McDi­ar­mid, Jayne Brown, Mike Ram­say and Sorcha Scott b) Beth Ogilvy joined the Park Author­ity on a four-month intern­ship as Access Infra­struc­ture Intern. Our aspir­a­tion in terms of the Youth Employ­ment Strategy is to sup­port the equi­val­ent of one full time equi­val­ent intern­ship over the course of the year. c) The Park Author­ity hos­ted a stand at the ​“Your Future Here” Careers Fair and show­cased a num­ber of roles with­in the Author­ity and career paths to achieve these roles. We also developed two week-long work exper­i­ence oppor­tun­it­ies with­in the organ­isa­tion which were pro­moted and recruited via this careers fair.

4. Equal­it­ies — The Park Author­ity has revised and updated the Dig­nity at Work and Equal Oppor­tun­it­ies Policies. We are also in the pro­cess of con­sult­ing with staff on a new Men­stru­al Health and Endo­met­ri­os­is Sup­port Policy, and a Fer­til­ity Treat­ment Policy, which will be part of our suite of health, well­being and inclu­sion policies.

5. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment — The Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment and People Strategy has now been adop­ted, fol­low­ing con­sulta­tion with staff and Resources Com­mit­tee. Aligned to this strategy was the revi­sion of our organ­isa­tion­al val­ues. The Park Author­ity con­trac­ted an extern­al facil­it­at­or to sup­port this work, and we have now launched the new Prin­ciples, which are repla­cing the val­ues. These prin­ciples are Pas­sion and Ded­ic­a­tion, Com­munity, Pion­eer­ing and Inspir­ing Lead­er­ship. The next stage of the pro­cess is to work with staff to identi­fy and pro­mote the beha­viours that under­lie these principles.
6. Fin­ance — Com­mit­ment of the budget has been pro­ceed­ing well across the first four months of the year. A full review of com­mit­ments and fore­casts is under­way in response to the Scot­tish Government’s request for assist­ance in address­ing nation­al fund­ing constraints.

Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Title: Convener’s update Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener

Pur­pose To high­light to board mem­bers and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) and staff the meet­ings and events the Board Con­vener has been attend­ing since the last Form­al Board meeting.

1. Blair Atholl – Moun­tain­side meet­ing with Min­is­ter for Cli­mate Change, Alas­dair Allan MSP, and Atholl Estate own­ers, dis­cuss­ing Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity deliv­ery of peat­land res­tor­a­tion work, the Park Authority’s pro­mo­tion of new entrants to the sec­tor, and future oppor­tun­it­ies to expand this work. Also dis­cussed with the Min­is­ter ini­ti­at­ives to increase the sup­ply of afford­able rur­al hous­ing, and meas­ures to improve aspects of the exist­ing stock.
2. Con­ven­tion of High­lands and Islands (COHI) — Con­trib­uted to a nation­al review of the func­tions, scope and future oper­a­tions of the COHI, high­light­ing strengths and sug­gest­ing reforms to enhance its effectiveness.
3. Mem­ber of Scot­tish Par­lia­ment (MSP) / Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP) meet­ings – Face-to-face dis­cus­sions with a series of polit­ic­al rep­res­ent­at­ives regard­ing the work and plans of the Park Author­ity, includ­ing Ariane Bur­gess MSP for High­lands and Islands, Audrey Nicoll MSP for Aber­deen South and North Kin­cardine, Fer­gus Ewing MSP for Inverness and Nairn, and Gra­ham Lead­bit­ter, MP for Moray West, Nairn and Strath­spey. Issues included the urgent need for action to improve the sup­ply of afford­able hous­ing, and a wide range of chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies facing people who live, vis­it and work in the Nation­al Park.
4. Scot­tish Land and Estates (SLE) – Met the Chair and seni­or staff of SLE, explor­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for fur­ther part­ner­ship work­ing to achieve the Park Authority’s goals, includ­ing sup­port to high­light career oppor­tun­it­ies for young people inter­ested in work­ing on the land.
5. NatureScot – Meet­ing with the Chair of Scotland’s nature agency, dis­cuss­ing issues of mutu­al interest includ­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of aspects of the Park Authority’s Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.
6. Nation­al Farm­ers’ Uni­on Scot­land (NFUS) – Inform­al dis­cus­sions with region­al staff and rep­res­ent­at­ives of the NFUS, on a range of issues includ­ing fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies for closer col­lab­or­a­tion with the Park Authority.
7. Nation­al Lot­tery Her­it­age Fund (NLHF) – Par­ti­cip­ated in the NLHF pub­li­city cam­paign to high­light the impact of 30 years of Lot­tery fund­ing on people’s lives and heritage.
8. Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust (GWCT) – Met with rep­res­ent­at­ives of the GWCT at a gath­er­ing of chairs and stakeholders.
9. Scot­tish Game­keep­ers Asso­ci­ation (SGA) – Dis­cussed with rep­res­ent­at­ive of the SGA a range of issues includ­ing man­age­ment of moor­land hab­it­ats, pred­a­tion con­trol and future challenges.
10. Car­rbridge – Atten­ded day-long Cairngorms 2030 com­munity engage­ment day, meet­ing loc­al res­id­ents, busi­ness own­ers and oth­er attendees, dis­cuss­ing caper­cail­lie con­ser­va­tion, pro­pos­als for traffic man­age­ment, river res­tor­a­tion and oth­er initiatives.
11. The King’s Found­a­tion — Meet­ing with Trust­ee of the Kings Found­a­tion to dis­cuss plans for a day-long gath­er­ing of major landown­ers in the Nation­al Park, to dis­cuss issues of mutu­al interest.
12. Cairngorms Crofters and Farm­ers Group (CCFG) – Had a series of inform­al dis­cus­sions with lead­ers of the CCFG, explor­ing fur­ther oppor­tun­it­ies for work­ing with the Nation­al Park to deliv­er on com­mon goals.
13. Scone — Atten­ded Scot­tish Game Fair at Scone, meet­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives of land man­age­ment, sport­ing and related nature bodies.
14. Scot­tish Wild­life Trust (SWT) – Atten­ded on-site dis­cus­sions at the Allt Lorgy river res­tor­a­tion pro­ject near Car­rbridge, hos­ted by SWT, involving the Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive, oth­er part­ners and polit­ic­al rep­res­ent­at­ives regard­ing les­sons learned from the award-win­ning pro­ject which has been sup­por­ted by CNPA.
15. Grant­own – Atten­ded day-long activ­it­ies at Grant­own Show, meet­ing loc­al res­id­ents and stakeholders.
16. Brae­mar – Met with the chair of Brae­mar Com­munity Coun­cil for inform­al dis­cus­sions about a range of issues affect­ing the vil­lage includ­ing con­tinu­ing efforts to improve traffic management.
17. Strath­don – Atten­ded Lon­ach Gath­er­ing at Strath­don, meet­ing loc­al res­id­ents, work­ers and CNPA stakeholders.
18. Game­keep­ers Wel­fare Trust (GWT) – Dis­cus­sion with the chief exec­ut­ive of the GWT, an organ­isa­tion sup­port­ing game­keep­ers, stalk­ers and ghillies.
19. Beaver Trail – Atten­ded the open­ing of the new Beaver Trail at Rothiemurchus, meet­ing some of those involved in its devel­op­ment, and fam­il­ies among the first to exper­i­ence it.
20. Gal­lo­way Nation­al Park Asso­ci­ation (GNPA) – Met the Chair of Trust­ees of the GNPA, address­ing the accur­acy of some claims regard­ing exist­ing Nation­al Parks.
21. Loch Lomond and Trossachs Nation­al Park (LLT­NP) – Con­tin­ued monthly meet­ings with the Con­vener of the LLT­NP to dis­cuss issues of mutu­al interest.

In addi­tion to these meet­ings, I con­tin­ued indi­vidu­al meet­ings with Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority’s Board mem­bers includ­ing apprais­al dis­cus­sions, meet­ings with staff, oth­er part­ner organ­isa­tions and stakeholders.

Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener