Assess­ing herb­i­vore impact for Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION applications

Ver­sion 1.0

This guid­ance note sets out the approach Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION will under­take for all grant applic­a­tions to assess poten­tial herb­i­vore impacts.

Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION pro­jects are developed and delivered across the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Fol­low­ing peat­land res­tor­a­tion ground­works, re-wet­ted peat­lands with low herb­i­vore pres­sure respond quick­er due to more rap­id veget­a­tion recov­ery. Con­versely, high­er herb­i­vore pres­sure has the poten­tial to com­prom­ise the eco­lo­gic­al recov­ery and res­ult in the inten­ded pro­ject out­comes not being achieved.

For sites where res­tor­a­tion has taken place, the recom­men­ded sus­tain­able graz­ing levels¹ on blanket bog and raised bog is less than 0.02 Live­stock Unit­s² (LUs)/Ha/Yr.

For Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION applic­a­tions, applic­ants must sub­mit inform­a­tion per­tin­ent to the res­tor­a­tion area, to demon­strate the cur­rent graz­ing pres­sure is with­in the sus­tain­able levels (0.00−0.02 LUs/​Ha/​Yr). Sup­port­ing inform­a­tion may include:

• live­stock units and deer densities
• Deer Man­age­ment Group (DMG)/Deer Man­age­ment Plans (DMP)
• Herb­i­vore Impact Assess­ment (HIA)
• High­er stock­ing levels with­in a graz­ing man­age­ment unit may still be accept­able with fur­ther invest­ig­a­tion and with appro­pri­ate mitigations/​adjustments if required.

This includes the cumu­lat­ive impact of all herb­i­vores on a pro­ject area. For example, applic­ants who are also with­in AECS must provide a graz­ing cal­en­dar where stock­ing is above the sus­tain­able graz­ing level. Applic­a­tions are unlikely to be sup­por­ted where there is lim­ited or insuf­fi­cient data avail­able as the poten­tial risk can­not be assessed.

Table 1 out­lines the key con­sid­er­a­tions which will inform our assess­ment of the risk. If, on bal­ance, the over­all risk is deemed to be high, then Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION are unlikely to fund the pro­ject. Ulti­mately, this approach will allow Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION to make informed and con­sist­ent decisions on the risk that herb­i­vores pose to all pro­posed res­tor­a­tion applications.

Mon­it­or­ing herb­i­vore impacts on Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION res­tor­a­tion projects

Pre-res­tor­a­tion baseline inform­a­tion relat­ing to herb­i­vores includ­ing stock­ing dens­it­ies and HIA will be referred to as part of mon­it­or­ing to ensure com­pli­ance with the Grant Terms and Con­di­tions, for which there is a stand­ard 10-year peri­od. The Grant Terms and Con­di­tions state:

“You shall ensure that site improve­ments are main­tained for 10 years from the date of receipt of your final Grant pay­ment. Without pre­ju­dice to the gen­er­al­ity of your main­ten­ance oblig­a­tions in terms of this Clause 12, you shall ensure that there is: no muir­burn; no increase in live­stock or deer dens­ity; no drain­age; no peat extrac­tion; no tree plant­ing; or no oth­er change of use on the res­tor­a­tion sites dur­ing the rel­ev­ant main­ten­ance period.”

Please request a copy of the Grant Terms and Con­di­tions for fur­ther information.

The Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION Mon­it­or­ing Strategy iden­ti­fies mon­it­or­ing herb­i­vore impacts on peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects as a key pri­or­ity. As a con­di­tion of grant fund­ing, Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION may con­duct spe­cif­ic mon­it­or­ing of herb­i­vore impacts on peat­land res­tor­a­tion sites.

Table 1: Herb­i­vore Impact Assess­ment Matrix

Assess­ment cri­ter­ia	Very low risk	Low risk	Medi­um risk	High risk
Deer dens­ity³	0 – 2/​km²	>2 – 5/​km²	>5 – 10/​km²	>10/​km²
Live­stock grazing⁴	0.00 LUs/​Ha/​Yr	<0.02 LUs/​Ha/​Yr Or, if in AECS/BPS/LFASS: <0.075 LUs/​Ha/​Yr	>0.02 LUs/​Ha/​Yr Or, if in AECS/BPS/LFASS: <0.075 LUs/​Ha/​Yr	>0.075 LUs/​Ha/​Yr and not in AECS/BPS/LFASS
Con­sulta­tion response from CNPA Deer Officer	Sup­port­ive statement	Sup­port­ive statement	Sup­port­ive state­ment but with con­cerns raised	Unsup­port­ive state­ment and/​or con­cerns raised
Land­hold­ing part of DMG or has a Sec­tion 7/DMP in place?	Part of DMG and evid­ence of man­aging levels to below the required dens­ity. DMP in place. Sec­tion 7 not required.	Part of DMG which is act­ively man­aged with evid­ence of a com­mit­ment to effect­ively con­trolling num­bers to the levels required, sup­por­ted by evid­ence of a his­tory of redu­cing deer numbers.	Part of DMG which is act­ively man­aged, how­ever no evid­ence of effect­ively con­trolling num­bers to the levels required. DMP in place Sec­tion 7 (act­ive)	With­in a DMG but not effect­ively con­trolling num­bers to the levels required Sec­tion 7 (inact­ive)
	DMP in place Sec­tion 7 not required
Pop­u­la­tion dens­ity target	Com­mit­ment to main­tain tar­get dens­ity of <10km² in the longer term	Com­mit­ment to achieve tar­get dens­ity of <10/​km² with­in a real­ist­ic time­frame (i.e. with­in one year fol­low­ing restoration).	Com­mit­ment to main­tain tar­get dens­ity to 10/​km².	Com­mit­ment to increase tar­get dens­ity to 10/​km² or higher.
Pop­u­la­tion dens­ity trend	Demon­strable and sus­tained down­ward trend, or very low levels being maintained	Demon­strable down­ward trend.	Sus­tained trend to main­tain levels at, or around, 10/​km².	Upward trend, or a com­mit­ment to main­tain levels at, or above, 10/​km².
Herb­i­vore Impact Assess­ment (HIA)⁵ must be provided where available	All the HIA points are Low	Major­ity or all the HIA points are Low, Low-Moderate.	Major­ity or all the HIA points are Mod­er­ate, or Mod­er­ate-High. Where no sur­vey data is avail­able, an HIA will be required as part of the application.	Major­ity or all the HIA points Mod­er­ate, Mod­er­ate-High, or any High. Where no sur­vey data is avail­able, an HIA will be required as part of the application.

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¹ As per the SRPD FAS Tech­nic­al Note TN868 Devel­op­ing graz­ing plans for the con­ser­va­tion of semi-nat­ur­al hab­it­ats Live­stock Units as defined in the Farm Man­age­ment Hand­book. ² Based on cur­rent/up-to-date sur­veys. Where no dens­ity fig­ures are avail­able, applic­a­tion must be sup­por­ted by a HIA across the res­tor­a­tion area. ³ Based on cur­rent/up-to-date sur­veys. Where no dens­ity fig­ures are avail­able, applic­a­tion must be sup­por­ted by a HIA across the res­tor­a­tion area. ⁴ Where the pro­posed Peat­land ACTION res­tor­a­tion area falls with­in a land par­cel under AECS and/​or in receipt of BPS and/​or LFASS pay­ments, applic­ants are encour­aged to seek input from RPID to ensure agreed graz­ing levels meet scheme rules and min­im­um activ­ity. If these are not met, a derog­a­tion can be applied with RPID. An annu­al graz­ing cal­en­dar cov­er­ing the res­tor­a­tion area will be required as part of the applic­a­tion. Where the res­tor­a­tion area is part of a lar­ger field, the graz­ing cal­en­dar must reflect the full graz­ing area. If the field con­tains a mosa­ic of hab­it­at types, the res­ult­ant annu­al graz­ing level can be high­er, depend­ing on the hab­it­at types. These fig­ures refer to the graz­ing pres­sure across a full cal­en­dar year. The same out­come can be delivered by short­er peri­ods of high­er graz­ing pres­sure along­side peri­ods of low/​no graz­ing. There should be lower graz­ing pres­sure over the winter months. ⁵ Only required to cov­er the Cairngorms Peat­land ACTION pro­ject site bound­ary. Must fol­low Wild Deer Best Prac­tice method.