NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Con­text

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is a nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally import­ant haven for nature and wild­life. Hab­it­ats are rich and var­ied, from mont­ane alpine hab­it­ats high on the Cairngorms plat­eaux; fresh­wa­ter and ripari­an hab­it­ats of the renowned sal­mon rivers the Spey, Dee, Tay and South Esk; peat­land hab­it­ats import­ant for stor­ing car­bon; Cale­do­ni­an pine wood­lands, home of the rare caper­cail­lie; to stands of aspen in Strath­spey sup­port­ing rare insects and fungi.

Areas pro­tec­ted for nature conservation

With 55 nation­ally and 42 inter­na­tion­ally import­ant areas pro­tec­ted for a nature con­ser­va­tion com­pletely or par­tially with­in the Nation­al Park bound­ary, many of which over­lap with each oth­er, over half of the Nation­al Park is des­ig­nated as one or more areas pro­tec­ted for nature conservation.

• 2% UK LANDMASS
• 25% of rare anim­al, insects, lichen & fungi

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Changes in pro­tec­ted area con­di­tion 2015 — 2021

The con­di­tion of the pro­tec­ted areas could be con­sidered a reflec­tion of the wider state of biod­iversity with­in the Nation­al Park. Since the envir­on­ment­al baseline assess­ment was car­ried out for the cur­rent NPPP in 2015, the over­all num­ber of pro­tec­ted areas in favour­able con­di­tion has increased from 42% to 58%.

Pro­tec­ted area type	No. com­pletely or par­tially with­in the Park	No. in unfa­vour­able con­di­tion	% in favour­able con­di­tion	Change in condition
		2015	2021	2015	2021
SSSI	55	23	21	58%	62%	+4%
SAC	23	16	11	30%	52%	+22%
SPA	16	9	8	44%	50%	+6%
Ram­sar Site	3	2	1	33%	67%	+33%

Sum­mary of pres­sures affect­ing pro­tec­ted areas

A wide range of pres­sures (below) affect qual­i­fy­ing interests and noti­fied fea­tures of pro­tec­ted areas res­ult­ing in unfa­vour­able con­di­tion, most of which relate to land/​water use and man­age­ment. The inform­a­tion below shows the num­ber of pro­tec­ted areas affected by the par­tic­u­lar pres­sure accord­ing to the latest Site Con­di­tion Mon­it­or­ing car­ried out by NatureScot.

• ×175 Over/​Under graz­ing, tramp­ling & oth­er grazing
• ×47 Agriculture/​Forestry ops, game/​fish­er­ies management
• ×46 Burn­ing
• X44 Recre­ation disturbance
• X43 Invas­ive spe­cies, plant pests &
• X29 Water man­age­ment, water quality
• X27 Nat­ur­al Events
• X9 Cli­mate change
• X7 No pro-act­ive management
• X6 Pro-act­ive onsite man­age­ment & conservation
• X5 Extrac­tion
• X4 Devel­op­ment
• X4 Wild­life Crime
• X3 Main­ten­ance activities
• X2 Flood defence works
• XI Air pollution
• XI Dumping/​spread­ing of material
• XI Inter-spe­cif­ic competition

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Nation­al Nature Reserves

There are 9 act­ively pro­moted NNRs with­in the Nation­al Park.

NNR	Man­aged by
1 Craigel­lach­ie	NatureScot
2 Aber­nethy	NatureScot and RSPB
3 Glen­more	Forestry and Land Scotland
4 Insh Marshes	RSPB
5 Inveresh­ie and Inshriach	NatureScot
6 Muir of Dinnet	NatureScot
7 Mar Lodge Estate	Nation­al Trust for Scotland
8 Glen Tanar	Glen Tanar Estate
9 Cor­rie Fee	NatureScot

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Cairngorms Nature Action Plan (CNAP) 2019 — 2024

A num­ber of spe­cies and hab­it­ats import­ant for con­ser­va­tion and tack­ling the effects of cli­mate change have been iden­ti­fied for land­scape scale con­ser­va­tion, pri­or­ity spe­cies and involving people man­age­ment with­in the CNAP.

Hab­it­ats and spe­cies iden­ti­fied for action in the CNAР 2019 – 2024, and the hab­it­at type(s) that they are pre­dom­in­antly asso­ci­ated with

Hab­it­ats	nat­ive wood­lands (par­tic­u­larly Cale­do­ni­an pine forest sup­port­ing caper­cail­lie), moor­land and peat­lands, fresh­wa­ter and wet­lands (par­tic­u­larly for nat­ur­al flood management)
Mam­mals	Scot­tish wild­cat (found in wood­land hab­it­at); moun­tain hare (found in upland habitat)
Birds	caper­cail­lie (found in wood­land hab­it­at); cur­lew (found in wet­land and grass­land hab­it­at); golden eagle, per­eg­rine fal­con, (found in upland hab­it­ats); hen har­ri­er (found in upland and grass­land habitats)
Inver­teb­rates	Kentish glory, dark bordered beauty, pine hov­er­fly, wood ants, pine­wood mason bee, aspen hov­er­fly, shin­ing guest ant (reli­ant on wood­land hab­it­ats); sca­bi­ous min­ing bee (reli­ant on grass­land hab­it­ats); North­ern sil­ver stiletto fly, North­ern Feb­ru­ary red stone­fly, North­ern dam­sel­fly (reli­ant on water/​wetland habitats)
Mol­luscs	fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel (found in freshwater)
Trees, shrubs, plants	aspen, woolly wil­low, twin­flower, one-flowered win­ter­green, small cow wheat (found in wood­land hab­it­at); marsh saxi­frage, alpine blue sow thistle, oblong wood­sia (found in upland habitat)
Fungi & lichen	wax­caps (fungi, found in grass­land hab­it­at); Alect­or­ia ochro­leuca (lichen, found in upland hab­it­at); Her­telidea botry­ose (lichen, found in wood­land habitat)

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

CNAP: Pro­gress

There has been a huge amount of con­ser­va­tion work under­taken across the two years of the plan so far. This has been largely main­tained des­pite the pan­dem­ic due to the hard work of all those involved. 71 of the 83 actions (85%) are on track to deliv­er planned out­comes along with 30 out of 40 tar­gets (75%).

This is the third round on report­ing on the action plan activ­ity and deliv­ery, the pre­vi­ous round was in August 2020. The change in the num­ber of Action status since August 2020 are indic­ated in the red numerals

Actions

Over­all there is strong and steady pro­gress on most actions. There are now two red actions (peat­land and rap­tors) and amber is up from 6 to 8. Six of the Amber actions were pre­vi­ously green. The four actions that were amber in 2020 are now all green. The reduc­tion in green actions prob­ably reflects sev­er­al issues includ­ing Cov­id effects. Only one action has not yet star­ted (nat­ur­al cap­it­al accounting).

AIM	Red	Amber	Green	Not yet Star­ted	Not repor­ted	Actions
Land­scape Scale Conservation	1+1	2 – 1	17	0		21
Pri­or­ity Species	1+1	5+2	38 – 1	0 – 2	0	44
Involving People	0	1+1	11	0 – 1	0	12
Deliv­ery and monitoring	0	0	5	1	0	6
Totals	2+2	8+2	71 – 1	1 – 3		83

Tar­gets

This is the first time a com­pre­hens­ive assess­ment has been made against the tar­gets. There­fore a com­par­is­on with 2019 and 2020 can’t be made. Two spe­cies tar­gets are red indic­at­ing they are not likely to be achieved (caper­cail­lie and rap­tors). There are 5 amber and 30 that are green. Two spe­cies are pre­dicted to be in a bet­ter SRC pos­i­tion than ori­gin­ally thought. Twin flower has already reached its tar­get stage. One is no longer applic­able because the work on shin­ing guest ant has been sub­sumed into that for wood ants in gen­er­al. There are only 2 unreported.

TAR­GETS	Red	Amber	Green	Unre­por­ted	Total Tar­gets
Land­scape Scale Conservation	1	3	3	1	8
Pri­or­ity Species	2	0	24	1	27
Involving People	0	2	3	0	5
Totals	3	5	30	2	40

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Land­scape Scale Conservation

The inform­a­tion below shows the RAG status (left) of the CNAP tar­gets (right).

• 5,000 Ha new wood­land (includ­ing regen­er­a­tion & mont­ane) 2800ha to date.
• 70% of new wood­land to be nat­ive spe­cies 90% of the 2800Ha planted to date is nat­ive woodland.
• 750 Ha plant­a­tions on ancient wood­land sites (PAWS) & nat­ive wood­lands under act­ive restor­taion 340Ha under act­ive management.
• 20 farms in wood­land & grass­land pro­jects Delayed by farm advisor post vacancy: spe­cies rich grass­land pro­ject planned for start in 2022.
• 5000 Ha peat­land res­tor­a­tion 681 Ha delivered 2019 – 2021; 2,200 Ha planned for 2022 — 2024.
• 150km river and ripari­an res­tor­a­tion 43km under­taken so far across three catch­ments. Sig­ni­fic­ant res­tor­a­tion planned as part of Her­it­age Hori­zons Bid.
• 50 ponds cre­ated or restored, includ­ing SuDS 10 ponds in ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ and a fur­ther 20 planned for com­ple­tion in 2021.
• increase in farm­land wader pop­u­la­tions from the exist­ing 2015 baseline Not repor­ted : Sur­vey com­pleted in 2021 (delayed due to Cov­id). Data cur­rently being col­lated and ana­lysed for report­ing 2022.

Wood­land expan­sion and with pre­dom­in­antly nat­ive spe­cies has been very suc­cess­ful to date and its is very likely that the 5000ha tar­get will be exceeded.

The Scot­tish peat­land pro­gramme fund­ing has been secured for the next three years allow­ing more invest­ment by con­tract­ors, this is likely to accel­er­ate the pro­gress on res­tor­a­tion. This is now delivered dir­ectly through a CNPA peat­land action team. Though the tar­get of 5000Ha by 2024 may not be reached it is likely to do so only a year later.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Involving People

The inform­a­tion below shows the RAG status (right) of the CNAP tar­gets (left).

• Over 50 volun­teer rangers work­ing in Cairngorms Nation­al Park Cur­rently 38 – The same as in August 2020 but no more have been recruited due to Cov­id. How­ever more are planned in the next year or so.
• 5 com­munit­ies fully engaged in land­scape val­ues pro­ject Will be delivered through the Her­it­age Hori­zons Project.
• 15,000 people atten­ded out­door, nature-related events High online activ­ity but Cov­id 19 restric­tions meant that out­door event not pos­sible in 2021. Up to 2020 approx­im­ately 4,000 people engaged through the CNBW and oth­er events.
• 3 com­munit­ies involved in land-use decision mak­ing Will be delivered through the Her­it­age Hori­zons Project.
• 20 Land man­agers trained in com­munity engage­ment Train­ing pro­ject still in plan­ning phase of delivery.

Pub­lic Engagement

The pan­dem­ic has also affected the abil­ity and nature of pub­lic engage­ment. More engage­ment has been done online by the CNPA and will con­tin­ue be a fea­ture of pub­lic eneg­ae­ment going for­ward. The big week­end was vir­tu­al in 2020 and will be so in 2021.

Volun­teers remain an essen­tial com­pon­ent of good con­ser­va­tion work. They are involved with inver­teb­rates, wild plants, bird counts, hab­it­at cre­ation and sur­veys (eg aspen deadwood).

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Pri­or­ity Species

Work to achieve the tar­gets for pri­or­ity spe­cies has been over­whelm­ingly suc­cess­ful with all but two (Caper­cail­lie and Rap­tors) of the lis­ted spe­cies cur­rently at a green RAG status and pre­dicted to be achieved by 2024.

Caper­cail­lie

There is a very high risk that the CNAP tar­get will not be met. Caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tions in Scot­land have declined sig­ni­fic­antly from an estim­ated 20,000 birds in 1970 to 1,114 at the nation­al winter sur­vey in ²⁰¹⁵⁄₁₆. A fur­ther nation­al sur­vey res­ults are due in 2022.

The Park holds a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the nation­al pop­u­la­tion – around 80%, the major­ity in Strath­spey — mostly in areas pro­tec­ted for nature con­ser­va­tion but also in oth­er forests that host metapopulations.

Caper­cail­lie also per­sist in Deeside. The Strath­spey caper­cail­lie pop­u­la­tion is cru­cial to the long-term sur­viv­al of the spe­cies in the UK.

Rap­tors

Press release in Sept. 2020 on suc­cess­ful breed­ing of white-tailed eagle on an ECMP estate, the first in Deeside for around 200 years. How­ever recent events sur­round­ing rap­tor per­se­cu­tion cast doubt on the pro­gress of deliv­ery actions and there remains a very high risk that the CNAP tar­get will not be met.

It is unlikely that suf­fi­cient actions on the ground will be in place such that con­tin­ued inter­ven­tions are enabling a sus­tained increase in home range occu­pa­tion and breed­ing suc­cess of golden eagle, hen har­ri­er and peregrine.

Inver­teb­rates

The work on inver­teb­rates as a whole has expan­ded since the start of the plan with good pro­gress being in made on hab­it­ats, data as well as oth­er meas­ure includ­ing cap­tive breed­ing and trans­lo­ca­tions for wood ants at Mar lodge. In par­tic­u­lar con­cer­ted effort by sev­er­al organ­isa­tion to sur­vey and record spe­cies has dis­covered new sites, includ­ing North­ern Dam­sel­fly, North­ern Feb­ru­ary Red Stone­fly, Kentish glory and Dark bordered beauty moth.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Scot­tish Wildcat

Know­ledge about pop­u­la­tion fig­ures is patchy, partly due to the elu­sive beha­viour of wild­cat and also because of inter­breed­ing with domestic/​feral cats res­ult­ing in hybrids that can be dif­fi­cult to tell apart from pure bred wild­cat. The High­land Wild­life Park near Kin­craig are host­ing a breed­ing and rein­tro­duc­tion pro­gramme for Scot­tish wild­cat, Sav­ing Wild­cats. This should boost the pop­u­la­tion of Scot­tish wild­cat in the Nation­al Park in future years.

Grass­lands

Grass­lands are only covered with­in a single nature friendly farm­ing action. How­ever they deliv­er for plant and inver­teb­rate diversity as well as farm­land birds and per­haps they should be giv­en a high­er pri­or­ity with­in the plan. The recent resur­vey and GIS assess­ment of 2009 data has shown a decline in B&S of these import­ant grass­lands. This work has high­lighted a trend of decreas­ing extent and qual­ity of spe­cies rich grass­land in Badenoch & Strath­spey. 39% of sites sur­veyed in ²⁰⁰⁶⁄₀₇ have shown a loss in spe­cies diversity and cov­er. Of the 87 sites where spe­cies rich grass­land was the pre­dom­in­ant cov­er in 2006/2007, 58% have exper­i­enced sig­ni­fic­ant losses. The main cause of loss, respons­ible for 56% of the changes (in both groups) has been due to a reduc­tion in graz­ing, and the second biggest factor, respons­ible for 22% of changes/​losses has been devel­op­ment. Oth­er factors included wood­land plant­ing (2%) and live­stock dam­age (2%). Sur­veys are under­way in Glen­liv­et and Deeside to estab­lish if this pat­tern will be found else­where. As a con­sequence of this data, were are devel­op­ing new pro­jects focused on main­ten­ance and res­tor­a­tion of spe­cies rich grassland.

Cur­lew

The Nation­al Park is one of the most import­ant UK main­land sites for breed­ing wad­ing birds due to its com­bin­a­tion of wet­lands, wet grass­lands and low-intens­ity mixed farm­ing. Nev­er­the­less, cur­lew have seen their num­bers dra­mat­ic­ally reduce by over 62% between 1994 and 2017. Des­pite this tar­gets affect­ing wad­ing birds are expec­ted to be met by the CNAP.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Oth­er issues affect­ing biod­iversity ‑dis­eases, non-nat­ive species

Non-nat­ive spe­cies can kill, har­bour dis­ease, and/​or com­pete with nat­ive species

Patho­gens

Patho­gens can cause death or reduce viab­il­ity of pop­u­la­tions of host spe­cies, which has implic­a­tions eco­sys­tems and biod­iversity. In the Park, the main issues relate to tree health:

• Dothis­troma (red band) needle blight is a fungus that causes the pre­ma­ture loss of pine needles, weak­en­ing the tree which may lead to pre­ma­ture death.
• Ash die back or Chalara (Hymen­oecyphus fraxineus) is a fungus caus­ing die­back and mor­tal­ity in ash trees.
• Ramor­um Phytoph­thora ramor­um is a fungal dis­ease of larch.
• Phytoph­thora aus­tro­cedrae­on is a fungus that causes die­back and mor­tal­ity in juni­per where it attacks the roots and stems.

Advance­ments in Data Collection

Tech­no­logy

The use of tech­no­logy has increased and is deliv­er­ing more under­stand­ing as well as res­ults faster and less expens­ively than before.

The use of DNA sequen­cing for wild­cat, caper­cail­lie and pine hov­er­fly is pivotal in determ­in­ing the best way to con­serve these spe­cies. Envir­on­ment­al DNA (eDNA) for North­ern Feb­ru­ary Red stone­fly, and great cres­ted newt, is help­ing to see if pres­ence can be detec­ted even without see­ing the species.

Drones for aer­i­al sur­veys and satel­lite imagery are all help­ing to get a much bet­ter under­stand­ing of hab­it­ats, land cov­er and change. Satel­lite tag­ging and motion cam­er­as con­tin­ue to be used for mon­it­or­ing indi­vidu­al anim­als and species.

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NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE CON­SER­VA­TION

Fur­ther Information

Cairngorms Nature:

https://​cairngorm​snature​.co​.uk/​index

Cairngorms Nature Action Plan:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​a​u​t​h​o​r​i​t​y​/​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​p​a​r​k​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​g​i​e​s​/​cnap/

Pro­tect­ing biod­iversity in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​b​i​o​d​i​v​e​r​sity/

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Project:

https://cairngormscapercaillie.scot/

Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Framework:

https://​cairngorm​snature​.co​.uk/​c​a​p​e​r​c​a​i​l​l​i​e​-​f​r​a​m​ework

Cairngorms Wild Cat Pro­ject Final Report (NatureScot, 2012):

https://www.nature.scot/cairngorms-wildcat-project-final-report