Cairngorms Nature Strategy Group meeting notes - January 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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Cairngorms Nature Action Plan Strategy Group meeting

Park Author­ity office, Grant­own-on-Spey and on Teams Wed­nes­day 8 Janu­ary | 10am – 12noon

Attendees Alistair Whyte (Plant­life Scot­land), Alice Fogg (Vol­un­tary Action in Badenoch and Strath­spey), Alis­on Hester (Scot­tish Envir­on­ment, Food and Agri­cul­ture Research Insti­tu­tions), Anne Elli­ott (NatureScot), Car­o­lyn Robertson (Park Author­ity), Chris Beat­tie (Park Author­ity Board Mem­ber), Chris Don­ald (NatureScot), Claire Smith (RSPB Scot­land), Colin Edwards (Forestry and Land Scot­land), lan Wilson (Nation­al Farm­ers Uni­on Scot­land), Kelly-Anne Demp­sey (River South Esk Catch­ment Part­ner­ship), Penny Lawson (Spey Catch­ment Ini­ti­at­ive), Sarah Hen­shall (Park Author­ity), Shaila Rao (Nation­al Trust for Scot­land), Susan Cook­s­ley (Dee Catch­ment Partnership)

Apo­lo­gies Deirdre Stew­art (Dur­rell Wild­life), Deborah Long (Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Link), Helen Senn (Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land), Jeremy Roberts (Cairngorms Connect)

1. Agree the aim and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Strategy Group

Draft respons­ib­il­it­ies and an aim for the Strategy Group were shared and dis­cussed, and the fol­low­ing points were raised:

• Advocacy and pub­lic engage­ment: these respons­ib­il­it­ies could be strengthened to ensure impact­ful and more dynam­ic engage­ment with communities.
• Stra­tegic lead­er­ship and over­sight: these respons­ib­il­it­ies should include help­ing to avoid policy inco­her­ence, includ­ing related to farm­ing and agriculture.
• Secur­ing invest­ment: this could include ensur­ing fun­drais­ing oppor­tun­it­ies are not missed and activ­it­ies with­in the Nature Action Plan are not dir­ectly com­pet­ing for the same extern­al funding.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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• Mem­ber­ship: Some mem­bers sug­ges­ted invit­ing addi­tion­al organ­isa­tions to join the group, e.g., more NGOs and landown­ers. It was noted that the size of the group needs to remain prac­tic­al. To achieve this, rep­res­ent­at­ives of landown­ers and organ­isa­tions with diverse expert­ise have been invited to join. It was how­ever agreed that there is room to review the group’s mem­ber­ship and its col­lab­or­a­tion with the Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group (CUAG), Cairngorms Agri­cul­tur­al Advis­ory Group (CAAG), and oth­er for­ums to aid effect­ive engage­ment with landmanagers.

Actions:

• ☐ Car­o­lyn to update and recir­cu­late the draft aim and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the group in response to the feed­back received.
• ☐ Chris (Beat­tie) to liaise with CUAG and CAAG re work­ing with the Strategy Group.

1. Review the learn­ing from the last Cairngorms Nature Action Plan

The reflec­tions included in the Final Report for the last Cairngorms Nature Action Plan were sum­mar­ised and dis­cussed, and the fol­low­ing points were raised:

• Pos­it­ive impact on people: There is an oppor­tun­ity in future to com­mu­nic­ate more expli­citly the pos­it­ive dif­fer­ence that the Nature Action can make for people who live, vis­it, and work in the Nation­al Park. It is import­ant to high­light the mean­ing­ful impact that activ­it­ies in the Plan can and will have on people, their daily lives and live­li­hoods, for example through the deliv­ery of nature-based solu­tions to mit­ig­ate the impacts of cli­mate change.
• Spe­cies recov­ery: All the spe­cies included in the pre­vi­ous Nature Action Plan are included as indic­at­ors in the Cairngorms Nature Index. This will ensure they are not over­looked where there are ongo­ing needs and sig­ni­fic­ant invest­ment to date.
• Part­ner­ship work­ing: In future, Strategy Group mem­bers and deliv­ery part­ners could be more act­ively involved in the pro­cess of com­pil­ing data, meas­ur­ing suc­cess and input­ting to and review­ing pro­gress reports.
• Land man­ager engage­ment: Early and pro­act­ive engage­ment with land­man­agers is essen­tial to the suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of the next Action Plan. CUAG, CAAG and oth­er for­ums provide an oppor­tun­ity to do this, along­side Strategy Group mem­bers pro­act­ively enga­ging with the land man­agers they rep­res­ent (where relevant).

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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1. Learn about the Cairngorms Nature Index an intro­duc­tion and update

A brief over­view of the Cairngorms Nature Index was shared and dis­cussed, and the fol­low­ing points were raised:

• Ref­er­ence con­di­tions: The refence con­di­tions in the Cairngorms Nature Index will help to guide tar­get set­ting in the next Nature Action Plan. The ref­er­ence con­di­tions are based on his­tor­ic data and cur­rent factors, e.g., cli­mate change.
• Extern­al com­mu­nic­a­tions: The Nature Index must be access­ible to all if it is presen­ted pub­licly as part of the next Action Plan. We should also be mind­ful of mixed mes­sages if nar­rat­ives in the pub­lic domain dif­fer from find­ings in the Nature Index.
• Data gaps: Work is ongo­ing to com­pile data in the Cairngorms Nature Index. It was noted that Strategy Group mem­bers could help to fill data gaps, sub­ject to know­ing the full list of indicators.

Actions:

• Car­o­lyn to share Adam Fraser’s email (lead for the Cairngorms Nature Index) for mem­bers who are inter­ested in more inform­a­tion about the indic­at­ors in the Cairngorms Nature Index.

1. Review the pro­posed vis­ion and aim for the next Cairngorms Nature Action Plan, the out­line pro­cess for identi­fy­ing actions and any risks and issues.

A draft vis­ion, aim and ini­tial pro­cess for identi­fy­ing the actions to be delivered through the next Nature Action Plan was shared and dis­cussed, and the fol­low­ing points were raised:

• Aim: Whilst the draft aim is ambi­tious, and there’s room to emphas­ise this to help man­age expect­a­tions, it is based on the Scot­tish Government’s com­mit­ment as set out in the Scot­tish Biod­iversity Strategy. We need to make sure we can meas­ure pro­gress against the draft aim.
• Vis­ion: Some mem­bers of the group felt the vis­ion could be more ambi­tious and longer term, i.e., bey­ond 2045.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

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• Out­comes: There is room to emphas­ise that the plan will move us towards the out­comes and or that we aim to reach a ​‘mean­ing­ful point’ by 2030. There is also room to note the role of Oth­er effect­ive area-based con­ser­va­tion meas­ures (OECMs) in deliv­er­ing the out­come related to nature networks.
• Stake­hold­er involve­ment: It is import­ant to dir­ectly involve com­munit­ies and more land man­agers at this point, par­tic­u­larly regard­ing the vis­ion for the plan. This could poten­tially be a new ​‘Step 1’ in the draft pro­cess shared, but care needs to be taken to involve people in a mean­ing­ful way. There is also room to out­line at this stage how com­munit­ies might be involved in deliv­er­ing the plan.
• Eco­sys­tem approach: The Cairngorms Nature Index will be used to guide eco­sys­tem res­tor­a­tion through the next plan by using spe­cies to assess eco­sys­tem health and inform action.
• Dove­tail­ing with the last plan and exist­ing activ­it­ies: Sub­ject to find­ings from the Cairngorms Nature Index, there is a need to reflect on the actions in the pre­vi­ous plan to identi­fy any to be con­tin­ued and to map exist­ing con­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies in the Nation­al Park to identi­fy gaps. It was also noted that care needs to be taken to ensure activ­it­ies in the next plan are deliv­er­able along­side eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies, e.g. forestry.

Actions:

• Car­o­lyn to update and recir­cu­late the slide deck shared in response to the feed­back received.

1. AOB
   • Car­o­lyn to con­firm the pro­cess for the Strategy Group com­ment­ing on and sign­ing off documents.
   • Car­o­lyn to cir­cu­late a doodle poll for future meet­ing dates.