241213PerfCPaper3BringingBeaversBackProject-DEC 13

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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For dis­cus­sion Title: Bring­ing beavers back pro­ject Pre­pared by: Sarah Hen­shall, Head of Con­ser­va­tion and Andy Ford, Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change

Pur­pose

1. This paper presents the latest deliv­ery updates June — Novem­ber 2024 on the Bring­ing back beaver’s project.

Recom­mend­a­tions

1. 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 (NPPP). c) Any mater­i­al impacts on the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Authority’s stra­tegic risk management.

Per­form­ance Dashboard

1. 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:	Rat­ing	Com­ment­ary June — Decem­ber 2024
Pro­gress towards the project’s object­ives Raise aware­ness and increase under­stand­ing of beaver eco­logy, beha­viour, pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive impacts and inter­ac­tion with land­scapes and wild­life in the Nation­al Park.	Green	At the request of the Upper Spey beaver man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion group, a vis­it is being organ­ised to farms in Tay­side. Between June and Novem­ber, 20 posts have been shared across the Park Authority’s social media plat­forms, reach­ing 738,350 impres­sions, 394,515 video views, 1,492

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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Estab­lish and main­tain effect­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion and engage­ment with the farm and croft sec­tor regard­ing beavers and their poten­tial impacts.	Amber	Engage­ment with the farm­ing and croft­ing com­munity remains a key issue. The amount and nature of pub­lic dis­course has altered sig­ni­fic­antly since 2023 / 2024 releases, and it is expec­ted this trend will con­tin­ue with ongo­ing dialogue.
Release beaver fam­il­ies into the Upper Spey catch­ment to cre­ate a founder pop­u­la­tion to estab­lish a thriv­ing, sus­tain­able population.	Green	Year two (Octo­ber 2024 — April 2025) releases have been com­pleted. 15 beavers were released across four sites, bring­ing the total num­ber of releases in the upper Spey catch­ment to 33. One pair released in Decem­ber 2023 have suc­cess­fully bred, one kit has been confirmed.
		com­ments and approx­im­ately 3,416 clicks to links. This activ­ity is sup­ple­men­ted by work with part­ners. The Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager atten­ded the Grant­own Show and has giv­en sev­en talks, to a total audi­ence of over 300 people. Park Author­ity rangers pro­mot­ing respons­ible access and provid­ing inform­a­tion whilst on patrol in beaver areas.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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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	The Park Authority’s mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan sets out how the Park Author­ity will provide addi­tion­al sup­port for land man­agers in the Nation­al Park. Two beaver rangers have been appoin­ted to sup­port Beaver Pro­ject Man­ager with deliv­ery of the mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan. The Upper Spey Beaver Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion group is sched­uled to meet quarterly. The group receives monthly updates of beaver activ­ity. Flood bank sur­veys, con­duc­ted in col­lab­or­a­tion with a loc­al famer, have been com­pleted and res­ults will be shared widely in the new year.
Max­im­ise oppor­tun­it­ies for envir­on­ment­al and socio- eco­nom­ic bene­fits from beavers.	Green	The launch event for the beaver trail at Rothiemurchus was atten­ded by three loc­al fam­il­ies and covered by STV. Beaver pro­ject Man­ager atten­ded the Annu­al Gen­er­al Meet­ing (AGM) of Scot­tish Tour­ist Guides Asso­ci­ation high­light­ing the oppor­tun­it­ies that have aris­en. Two wild­life guid­ing com­pan­ies are now run­ning a pro­gramme of beaver tours.
—-	—-	—-
Imple­ment a research and mon­it­or­ing plan to provide an evid­ence base for the	Green	Fol­low­ing each release, feed­ing sta­tions, cam­er­as and site patrols are used to mon­it­or beaver activ­ity.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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|pos­it­ive and neg­at­ive
impacts of beaver.| |Reg­u­lar sur­veys, includ­ing canoe sur­veys,
record feed­ing signs, lodge build­ing and
ter­rit­ory mark­ing activ­ity.

The Park Author­ity has respon­ded to sight­ings
and field signs, inform­ing landown­ers of
activ­ity on their land­hold­ing with­in days of the
first report.|

Stra­tegic Background

1. In June 2022 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 the report­ing presen­ted with this paper are: a) 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: a) One Resources: pub­lic sec­tor fin­ances con­strain capa­city to alloc­ate suf­fi­cient resources to deliv­er cor­por­ate plan. b) 11 Repu­ta­tion: Dis­agree­ment between the Park Author­ity and stake­hold­er groups with­in The Park.

Per­form­ance Over­view: Deliv­ery Against Stra­tegic Objectives

1. The pro­ject has delivered the second phase of releases, con­tinu­ing to deliv­er the Part­ner­ship Plan action and Cor­por­ate Plan object­ive. Pos­it­ive pro­gress has been made against all pro­ject object­ives in line with the pro­ject times­cales and with­in budget expect­a­tions. The Park Author­ity con­tin­ues to take lead role in releases, land man­ager engage­ment, mon­it­or­ing, and imple­ment­ing the man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan.

2. The pro­ject sup­ports wider deliv­ery of 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.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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Per­form­ance Over­view: Risks Under Management

1. Staff­ing and resourcing: The high demand on staff resource asso­ci­ated with sur­veys, mon­it­or­ing, mit­ig­a­tion and land man­ager engage­ment, is pre­dicted to con­tin­ue through­out, and bey­ond, the five-year licence peri­od. With increas­ing num­bers of beavers released, an asso­ci­ated increase in mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion require­ments and a con­tinu­ing need to main­tain lines of com­mu­nic­a­tion, staff capa­city is an escal­at­ing risk.

2. In mit­ig­a­tion, staff capa­city has been aug­men­ted with the sup­port of two full time beaver rangers for a three-month peri­od to sup­port mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion. Part­ners are assist­ing with deliv­ery of all pro­ject object­ives and volun­teer sup­port is being explored, although likely to be lim­ited. Fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion of staff capa­city is being pro­gressed through the oper­a­tion­al plan cycle. Sub­ject to budget avail­ab­il­ity, the inten­tion is to have ded­ic­ated ranger time alloc­ated in sup­port of the project.

3. The Park Authority’s policy is to man­age the risk and impacts of beaver activ­ity, rather than man­aging the pres­ence of beavers. As beavers become more wide­spread in the Park, mon­it­or­ing beaver dis­tri­bu­tion will become less sig­ni­fic­ant, and resource will be more focussed on ensur­ing a swift and effect­ive response to mitigation.

4. Cur­rent and pro­jec­ted cap­it­al spend for sur­veys, mon­it­or­ing and pre-empt­ive mit­ig­a­tion is with­in oper­a­tion plan budget alloc­a­tions. Poten­tial addi­tion­al cap­it­al require­ments relat­ing to flood embank­ment repair is with­in the envel­ope of the Park Authority’s cap­it­al budget.

5. Repu­ta­tion­al risk: The key areas of repu­ta­tion­al risk for the Park Author­ity are in a per­ceived lack of com­mu­nic­a­tion and engage­ment with land man­agers, the speed of response, and the effic­acy of the man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan.

6. A per­ceived lack of com­mu­nic­a­tion and engage­ment remains a repu­ta­tion­al risk to the Park Author­ity. The risk is declin­ing as lines of com­mu­nic­a­tion are being strengthened, not­ably via the Cairngorms Agri­cul­tur­al Advis­ory Group (CAAG) and the Upper Spey Beaver Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion group. The Man­age­ment and Mit­ig­a­tion group has the spe­cif­ic remit to con­sider imple­ment­a­tion of mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. The group has met twice to date and is not yet suf­fi­ciently oper­a­tion­al to be con­sidered fully effect­ive. A new pro­ject object­ive has been intro­duced to reflect the pri­or­it­isa­tion of this rela­tion­ship as a key per­form­ance measure.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee Paper 3 13 Decem­ber 2024

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1. Com­mu­nic­a­tion is expec­ted to improve sig­ni­fic­antly with re-recruit­ment of the vacant Park Author­ity agri­cul­tur­al advisor post. Two sea­son­al rangers have been recruited to sup­port the beaver pro­ject man­ager in provid­ing a prompt response and imple­ment­a­tion of the mon­it­or­ing and mit­ig­a­tion plan.

2. The man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion plan has been imple­men­ted on five occa­sions: a col­lapsed embank­ment; remov­al of gnawed road­side trees; pro­tec­tion of a high biod­iversity value site; activ­ity near an area of high risk; and dam­ming of a ditch on farm­land. In each case the response was prompt, impacts were mit­ig­ated, and landown­ers are sat­is­fied with the out­come. Ongo­ing site mon­it­or­ing remains in place.

3. Pre-empt­ive tree pro­tec­tion is in place at sev­er­al sites iden­ti­fied as hav­ing a high like­li­hood of impacts on biod­iversity, busi­ness and property.

4. CAAG has a remit to act as a dir­ect line of com­mu­nic­a­tion between the Park Author­ity and the farm­ing and croft­ing com­munity, sup­port­ing col­lab­or­a­tion and fos­ter­ing a wider under­stand­ing of, and more engage­ment with, Park Author­ity activ­it­ies with­in the agri­cul­tur­al sector.

5. The man­age­ment and mit­ig­a­tion group com­prises land man­agers who are dir­ectly impacted by beaver activ­ity and/​or have beaver ter­rit­or­ies on their land. The group has a remit to ensure an adapt­ive approach to the on the ground applic­a­tion of sup­port avail­able to farm­ers and crofters, informed by first-hand experience.

Con­clu­sions: Per­form­ance Over­view and Mat­ters Mer­it­ing Stra­tegic Review

1. Good pro­gress is being made in the deliv­ery of the project’s vis­ion and object­ives. Staff capa­city is cur­rently suf­fi­cient to deliv­er pro­gramme object­ives. The risk of staff capa­city not being suf­fi­cient to meet future demands is under con­sid­er­a­tion as part of the oper­a­tion plan process.

Sarah Hen­shall Head of Con­ser­va­tion sarahhenshall@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Andy Ford Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change andyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk