Cairngorms Upland Advisory Group meeting notes - January 2025

Final CUAG minutes 16 Jan 2025:

Wel­come: Attend­ing: Pete Cos­grove, Han­nah Grist, Grant Moir, Andy Ford, Colin McCle­an, Fiona Holmes (all Park Author­ity), Dave Windle (NE Mtn Trust), Graeme Taylor (NatureScot), lan Wilson (NFUS), Deirdre Stew­ard (ADMG), Steph­en Young (SLE), Stu­art Smith (JHI), Will Ander­ston (Con­For), John Gri­er­son (CLOAF), Leslie George (SGA), John Risby (SF), Peter Clark (BASC), Tim Kirk­wood (Cairngorms Con­nect), Rory Kennedy (GWCT)

Apo­lo­gies: Alis­on Hester, Dav­id Frew, Richard Gled­son, Claire Smith.

Minutes of pre­vi­ous meet­ing: Note: a dis­cus­sion was star­ted about the pre­vi­ous meet­ing agenda item of Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (CNAP), and how the new CNAP should be dealt with. This was picked up later in the agenda under the CNAP item.

Actions arising: Only action from last meet­ing was: the Park Author­ity to bring next draft CNAP to CUAG for input and advice. CNAP is on this agenda – see notes of dis­cus­sion below.

Updates:

• New Agri­cul­tur­al Advisor in Park Authority

Mal­colm Smith, from Auch­er­nack Farm just South of Grant­own, is the new Park Author­ity Agri­cul­tur­al Advisor. He will start the post in Feb­ru­ary 2025.

• Spe­cies Licens­ing review

Graeme Taylor from NatureScot gave a verbal update to the meet­ing on this work and then post- meet­ing sent in the fol­low­ing text sum­mary to be included in these minutes:

In Janu­ary of 2024 the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment com­mit­ted to car­ry­ing out a review of NatureScot’s spe­cies licens­ing functions.

This review, com­mis­sioned by Scot­tish Min­is­ters, will set out to:

• ensure that the law is being applied cor­rectly and that leth­al con­trol is only licensed where the con­di­tions required for such a licence are demon­strably being met
• assess the poten­tial to apply the prin­ciple of full cost recov­ery to spe­cies licensing
• assess the poten­tial to intro­duce a pub­lic register of licenses to improve trans­par­ency, bear­ing in mind data pro­tec­tion and safety of licence holders.

The con­clu­sions will be sub­ject to extern­al review.

The review will be car­ried out in the con­text of the Bet­ter Reg­u­la­tion prin­ciples and the Scot­tish Reg­u­lat­ors Code of Practice

Cur­rent update on pro­gress with the Spe­cies Licens­ing Review:

• We [NatureScot] are cur­rently work­ing on final drafts of the Cost Recov­ery and Pub­lic Register sec­tions of the review. These will be ready for extern­al review at the end of January.
• We [NatureScot] are anti­cip­at­ing a final draft of the Leth­al Con­trol sec­tion of the review from Harp­er Macleod this month in advance of the dead­line for extern­al review.
• We [NatureScot]have com­pleted ini­tial stake­hold­er engage­ment to inform the review. A ques­tion­naire was cir­cu­lated dir­ectly to 30 key stake­hold­ers, and also shared on our web­site. (I’ve attached a copy of the ques­tion­naire in case this is help­ful). Ana­lys­is of responses has been com­pleted this week and will be included in the final report of the review.
• Some ini­tial key points;
  • 82% of respond­ents were opposed to the intro­duc­tion of charges for licensing
  • Sev­enty-nine per­cent of stake­hold­ers in favour of cost recov­ery sup­por­ted tiered charges
  • Respond­ents emphas­ised the import­ance of science/​evidence over emotion/​public pres­sure with­in the licens­ing pro­cess for leth­al control.
  • 20% of respond­ents showed pref­er­ence for gen­er­al licences as a sat­is­fact­ory altern­at­ive to indi­vidu­al licences for leth­al con­trol, with many sug­gest­ing their expansion
  • In regard to a pub­lic register, key con­cerns from stake­hold­ers included adher­ence to GDPR and pro­tec­tion of per­son­al data, and the risk of inter­fer­ence from those opposed to licensed activ­ity. Oth­ers noted that they would wish to be able to inter­rog­ate a register to see which licences were held in par­tic­u­lar areas.
• [NatureScot] had par­tic­u­larly high response rates from the ​‘Farming/​Fisheries’ and ​‘Estates/​Gamekeepers’ sec­tors to the questionnaire.
• [NatureScot] are intend­ing to fol­low up with some fur­ther stake­hold­er engage­ment regard­ing the out­comes of the review.
• Regard­ing the scope of the review, [Nature Scot] this was decided at SG/​Ministerial level and is also affected by capa­city and fund­ing. [NatureScot] con­sider that the focus on the leg­al review of leth­al con­trol licens­ing encom­passes an area of key concern.
• Review due date was end of Jan 24, will be tight to get fin­ished by then.

A CUAG mem­ber ques­tioned what the next steps would be for accept­ing or reject­ing responses made by stake­hold­ers and con­sul­tees? And were there any times­cales for doing this? Nature Scot respon­ded that the Spe­cies Licens­ing Review report will go to Scot­tish Min­is­ters and what hap­pens there­after is up to Scot­tish Ministers.

• Park Author­ity budget

Update from Park Author­ity: Budget from Scot­Gov con­firmed in Decem­ber ​‘24 as roughly the same as last year.

There is still a size­able peat­land res­tor­a­tion budget in place. Park Author­ity are wait­ing on com­munity devel­op­ment related ele­ments – not entirely sure of final fig­ures yet. Park Author­ity won’t hear about Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund­ing until early Feb­ru­ary ​‘25.

The Park Author­ity Board meet­ing in March ​‘25 is where the Author­ity budget will be finally agreed.

The Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund offered by the Park Author­ity will be in place again for this year and Expres­sions of Interest are likely to open in Feb­ru­ary ​‘25 so inter­ested parties have more time than they did last year to bid.

Dis­cus­sions:

• Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (CNAP)

Dis­cus­sion around CNAP report­ing from last CUAG meeting;

Some felt it was unreal­ist­ic­ally pos­it­ive and didn’t acknow­ledge con­tinu­ing declines in some species.

Park Author­ity respon­ded that with­in CNAP report­ing it does list tar­gets not met & spe­cies in decline.

Pred­at­or con­trol and how this is approached was men­tioned by some as key to address­ing issues with some declin­ing species.

Oth­ers poin­ted out that pred­at­or con­trol is only one of sev­er­al factors involved and shouldn’t be con­cen­trated on to exclu­sion of all else.

The Park Author­ity noted the dis­cus­sion and thus how import­ant it is for the next CNAP (cur­rently start­ing it’s devel­op­ment) that CUAG have a defined way to input and con­trib­ute. This would allow such issues to be con­sidered from the start of the pro­cess not at the end.

Fur­ther dis­cus­sion of CNAP; Aims of CNAP are to tackle twin crises and improve cli­mate resilience.

Import­ant that devel­op­ment of CNAP includes the right people and is hear­ing the right voices, but the steer­ing group mustn’t duplic­ate mem­ber­ship or effort of CUAG.

It was sug­ges­ted that an early draft CNAP should come to CUAG for discussion/​edit before then going to Park Author­ity Board as a draft and then out to pub­lic consultation.

CUAG asked if this sug­ges­ted approach is acceptable?

Some sug­ges­ted the timetable is very tight to get CNAP draf­ted and to all the right people. Also that the CNAP steer­ing group is too big to allow fur­ther mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sion at this stage.

A wide-ran­ging dis­cus­sion was held on the mer­its of action for pri­or­ity spe­cies and func­tion­ing eco­sys­tems. CUAG has a spe­cif­ic advis­ory role to the Park Author­ity and the group’s com­ments are wel­comed and used to help inform planned actions.

ACTION Park Author­ity to take points made by CUAG back to CNAP steer­ing group and CNAP devel­op­ment process.

• Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan (IWMP) – advance draft for comment

A wide ran­ging dis­cus­sion of latest draft was held and included the fol­low­ing topics:

Noted that with­in IWMP the onus, and ​‘should’ lan­guage’, is all on land man­agers, but import­ant to recog­nise where will sup­port for imple­ment­a­tion of the IWMP come from?

The Park Author­ity admin­istered Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund will be avail­able for fund­ing bids for some fire man­age­ment related items. Addi­tion­al fund­ing sources are likely to be required and that the Park Author­ity needs to recog­nise this.

ACTION Park Author­ity to look at some prac­tic­al things that could con­trib­ute to fire man­age­ment and could be (part) funded

Views expressed included put­ting more respons­ib­il­ity onto the land man­agers that have high­er fuel loads. Oth­ers countered that there are lots of dif­fer­ent ways to man­age for fire risk, it’s not just about fuel loads.

Scot­tish Forestry rep­res­ent­at­ive noted that in terms of forestry grant scheme there is a require­ment to have insur­ance against fire damage

Noted that mit­ig­a­tion of risk is the basis of the IWMP and both pub­lic and private resource costs are bound up in this.

A wide ran­ging dis­cus­sion was had and the fol­low­ing key points noted: Dif­fer­ent responses required for dif­fer­ent land man­age­ment activ­it­ies. A one size fits all pre­scrip­tion is likely to be of lim­ited value. The poten­tial for col­lab­or­at­ive fire train­ing was discussed.

How should the role of estate tracks as fire breaks being con­sidered? Can the exist­ing policy on visu­al and land­scape impacts with tracks be recon­sidered for cer­tain stra­tegic fire breaks in light of the IWMP?

Remind­er from Park Author­ity that the IWMP is about rais­ing pro­file of issues and get­ting all land man­agers, regard­less of approach, to think care­fully about how to best man­age an increased fire risk, using a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent approaches, in an ever-chan­ging climate.

Are all the main audi­ences for IWMP inform­a­tion are included, vis­it­or man­age­ment for instance?

Park Author­ity high­lighted that much has already been done on vis­it­or side already, for instance there’s a £75k budget for comms related to the Fire Byelaw and Park Ranger service.

ACTION ensure IWMP also goes to those that man­age vis­it­ors, not just those that man­age land

• CNP Forestry Strategy 2018 — Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note for comment

Intro­duc­tion about Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note;

Since the strategy was pro­duced in 2018 a new park part­ner­ship plan has been pub­lished, land use policy has evolved and some com­mon issues and learn­ing have emerged,

Exper­i­ence over last few years is that there are some areas where fur­ther guid­ance is needed to help inter­pret­a­tion of NPPP, CNPFS and SF approaches and aid the devel­op­ment and assess­ment of forestry proposals.

Import­ant — the Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note is not re-writ­ing any exist­ing guid­ance, just provid­ing some extra clarification.

Scot­tish Forestry ran through the draft Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note high­light­ing each topics.

There­after CUAG dis­cus­sion included:

Fur­ther cla­ri­fic­a­tion sought on what is meant by ​‘in-bye’ land because defin­i­tions can be important.

ACTION provide fur­ther clar­ity on defin­i­tion ​‘in-bye’ land in rela­tion to the Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note.

Post meet­ing note: Scot­tish Islands Agri­cul­tur­al Devel­op­ment Pro­gramme Reg­u­la­tions 1988 state:

“inbye land” means any land which is or has been enclosed or delin­eated by fences, dykes, hedges, etc. (includ­ing appor­tioned land) and which has been used for cul­tiv­a­tion, pro­duc­tion of for­age or closely con­trolled graz­ing by stock;

Rur­al Pay­ments and Ser­vices Scot­land state: https://​www​.rur​alpay​ments​.org/​t​o​p​i​c​s​/​u​p​d​a​t​e​s​/​g​u​i​d​a​n​c​e​-​a​r​c​h​i​v​e​/​a​g​r​i​-​e​n​v​i​r​o​n​m​e​n​t​-​c​l​i​mate- scheme-man­age­ment-options-archive/or­gan­ic-descrip­tion-of-land-cat­egor­ies-archived-13 – 09- 2017/

In-bye land

1. ‘In-bye’ is that part of the farm which is used mainly for arable and grass­land pro­duc­tion and which is not hill and rough grazings

2. ‘In-bye’ land has fields that are bounded by a fence, a dyke or a hedge

3. ‘In-bye grass­land’ will be con­served for winter feed (e.g. as hay or sil­age) or grazed by livestock

4. ‘In-bye grass­land’ will be either ​‘improved’ or ​‘unim­proved. Both ​‘improved grass­land’ and ​‘unim­proved grass­land’ are clas­si­fied as ​‘in-bye’

To clas­si­fy as ​‘in-bye’ clauses (1) and (2) must be sat­is­fied and, where the land is man­aged for grass­land pro­duc­tion, clauses (3) and (4) must also be satisfied.

Please note that he ​‘in-bye’ defin­i­tion applies to that part of the farm where the bulk of the land is used for arable or grass­land pro­duc­tion. Uncul­tiv­ated field corners and field mar­gins (such as water mar­gins and hedgerows) with­in this area are included as ​‘in-bye!

Although ​‘in-bye land’ has tra­di­tion­ally meant the enclosed grass and arable fields close to the house and stead­ing and below the ​‘hill or moor­land dyke’, it is quite pos­sible to have an area of ​‘in-bye’ land above the ​‘hill dyke’ (e.g. a tup­ping or bull park) – an enclosed area of improved or unim­proved grass­land once reclaimed from the hill, moor­land or heath.

A brief dis­cus­sion was held into what pro­por­tion of land with­in the Nation­al Park was under wood­land and forestry cov­er versus open moorland:

What hap­pens after all tree plant­ing tar­gets met? What hap­pens next?

The cur­rent wood­land tar­gets are very chal­len­ging and not being met. Even if tar­gets are met the Park Author­ity estim­ate that about 20% of park land area will be wood­land or forestry so it will remain a pre­dom­in­ately open land­scape in the future.

Import­ance of wooded areas in the very long term is in hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity health. Cur­rent park strategy and grants tar­geted towards hab­it­at con­nectiv­ity (e.g. pine­woods and ripari­an cor­ridors) rather than simple wood­land area expansion.

Ques­tions were asked around if the Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance deals adequately with issues of car­bon sequestration/​release, patho­gens and pest risk?.

NOTE: The Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance is not a stand-alone doc­u­ment, it is selec­ted points of cla­ri­fic­a­tion ONLY. All main guid­ance lies with­in NPPP and CNP Forestry Strategy, as well as from Scot­tish Forestry.

Sug­ges­ted ACTION pick out only the items that have changed and remove or change pre-amble to help pur­pose of Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance, and that it’s not in place of NPPP or CNP Forestry Strategy, be clearer.

There was a ques­tion raised regard­ing con­di­tion­ing the remov­al of deer fences and HIA changes over time? Agreed that this needs some addi­tion clarification.

ACTION cla­ri­fy sec­tion on deer fences in Sup­ple­ment­ary Guidance.

A view raised that the sec­tion in Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance about tracks is con­ten­tious — is this noter just advis­ory? Shouldn’t the cur­rent Plan­ning Cir­cu­lar be the defin­it­ive guidance?

ACTION cla­ri­fy pur­pose of Sup­ple­ment­ary Guid­ance note in rela­tion to tracks.

AOB

• Stu­art Smith – HIA meth­od­o­logy review

JHI are cur­rently under­tak­ing research pro­ject eval­u­at­ing Herb­i­vore Impact Assess­ment (HIA) meth­od­o­lo­gies com­mis­sioned by NatureScot. They have cre­ated an online sur­vey which aima aim­ing to get feed­back from people that carry out HIA meth­od­o­lo­gies in Scot­tish open hill ran­ge­land as well as those that have ana­lysed or inter­preted the res­ults from surveys.

The sur­vey weblink is here https://​hut​ton​.qual​trics​.com/​j​f​e​/​f​o​r​m​/​S​V​_​c​w​E​l​z​s​n​g​u​G​V7DWS

ACTION CUAG mem­bers with HIA exper­i­ence please com­plete they sur­vey and share with any­one you think might be inter­ested in provid­ing feed­back on HIA methodologies.

Note: this only applies to open range HIA not wood­land HIA

• Oth­er

Ensure tim­ing of future CUAG meet­ings fits in with stages of draft­ing CNAP and CNAP steer­ing group meetings.

Ques­tion — are fer­al pigs included in CNAP? Not currently.

Dis­cus­sion of Pub­lic Sec­tor approach to fer­al pigs, and like­li­hood of them being wide­spread in the Nation­al Park soon.

END