NPPP 2022 Factsheet:

NATURE LAND MANAGEMENT

Wood­land

The wood­lands of the Park are a dis­tinct­ive fea­ture of the land­scape, eco­logy, eco­nomy and cul­tur­al her­it­age. Part of the reas­on for their import­ance and dis­tinct­ive­ness stems from the unusu­ally high pro­por­tion of nat­ive tree spe­cies they con­tain (even com­mer­cial wood­lands are pre­dom­in­antly Scots pine).

It is also one of the most widely recog­nised spe­cial qual­it­ies of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. By provid­ing this net­work and sup­port­ing many of the pri­or­ity spe­cies iden­ti­fied in the CNAP, forests and wood­lands make an import­ant con­tri­bu­tion to the wider biod­iversity in the Park.

The Nat­ive Wood­land Sur­vey of Scot­land indic­ates that while the aver­age pro­por­tion of nat­ive wood­land across all Scot­tish loc­al author­ity areas is 22.5%, the Cairngorms Nation­al Park boasts at least 69%, mak­ing it the only area in Scot­land where nat­ive wood­land forms the major­ity of the wood­land resource.

Of the nat­ive wood­land resource, 67% con­sists of nat­ive pine­woods, which are a mix­ture of ancient forest and woods of plant­a­tion ori­gin. 63% of nat­ive wood­land is in good health for biod­iversity, based on ana­lys­is of four key con­di­tion measures.

Pro­vi­sion­al estim­ates of forest cov­er (area, volume and car­bon stor­age) in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (Nation­al Forest Invent­ory, 2015

	Total area (Ha)	Total area (%)	Total volume (K m3 obs)	Total car­bon (K t)
Scots pine	36,900	60	7,240	2,577
Sitka spruce	5,600	9	1,843	549
Lodge­pole pine	3,000	5	743	257
Larches	2,600	4	644	201
Oth­er conifers	1,600	3	552	154
All con­ifers	49,800	81	11,040	3,758
Birch	10,200	16	858	454
Oth­er broadleaves	1,900	3	220	104
All broadleaves	12,100	19	1,082	560
All spe­cies	62,300	100	12,126	4,318

The table above provides a sum­mary of forest cov­er by the main tree spe­cies in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. 81% of the area of tree cov­er is con­i­fer­ous with three quar­ters of that being nat­ive Scots pine (60%). By far the most dom­in­ant broadleaf spe­cies is birch (16%) with oth­er spe­cies, eg row­an and aspen mak­ing up only 3% of the tree cover.

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Almost all of the Cale­do­ni­an forest resource ofthe Nation­al Park is inter­na­tion­ally sig­ni­fic­ant and pro­tec­ted through Spe­cial Areas of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) des­ig­na­tion. In the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, forest cov­er is just 16.4% (see the map below), whilst in Scot­land as a whole it is 18%. Nev­er­the­less the Cairngorms forests are dis­pro­por­tion­ately sig­ni­fic­ant for rare flora and fauna. There are 223 spe­cies known to be ​‘highly sig­ni­fic­ant’ in the Nation­al Park, ie between 75 – 100% of their UK pop­u­la­tion is with­in the Nation­al Park. Of these, 100 are depend­ent on wood­land whilst, by com­par­is­on, wet­land hosts 12, grass­land eight and moor­land only one.

Cur­rent forest resource in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (pro­duced using the Nation­al Forest Invent­ory, 2015).

[Map image]

A sig­ni­fic­ant pro­por­tion of the Nation­al Park forests are man­aged for tim­ber pro­duc­tion, provid­ing employ­ment through all stages of forest man­age­ment from forest plan­ning to tree nurs­er­ies through to plant­ing, felling and provid­ing the raw mater­i­als for the saw­mills. We are for­tu­nate to have two major saw­mills with­in and on the edge of the Nation­al Park and sev­er­al small scale saw­mills in and around the Nation­al Park.

The wood­land and forest strategy seeks to build upon this resource and infra­struc­ture, cre­at­ing a sense of optim­ism and grow­ing forest cul­ture in the Nation­al Park.

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Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory wood­lands in the Park

Around 340 square km of the Nation­al Park’s wood­lands are iden­ti­fied as being ancient accord­ing to the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory (https://www.nature.scot/professionaladvice/ land-and-sea-man­age­ment/­man­aging-land/­forests-and-wood­land­s/his­tory-scot­landswood- lands). Although not defin­it­ive due to his­tor­ic­al map­ping issues, the Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory provides an indic­a­tion of where ancient wood­lands can be found in the Park (map below).

[Legend: Semi-nat­ur­al Long estab­lished of plant­a­tion ori­gin Oth­er (on Roy map)]

[Map image]

Ancient wood­land is defined as land that is cur­rently wooded and has been con­tinu­ally wooded, at least since 1750. Around 160 square km of ancient wood­lands have been iden­ti­fied as being semi-natural.Ancient wood­land is of import­ance for biod­iversity, due to its antiquity and lack of sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the soil struc­ture. Once des­troyed, it can­not be recreated.

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Wood­land Creation

A key aim of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy is wood­land cre­ation. Wood­land cre­ation can occur through new plant­ing or by cre­at­ing con­di­tions that allow nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. Wood­land con­trib­utes to tack­ling cli­mate change through trees absorb­ing car­bon diox­ide. It can also help to nat­ur­ally man­age flood­ing, an effect of cli­mate change. There has been a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in new wood­land in the Nation­al Park since 2011, with around 40% occur­ring through regen­er­a­tion and 60% through new planting.

[Chart: Cumu­lat­ive hec­tares of new wood­land since 2011 by cre­ation type]

Cumu­lat­ive new plant­ing 2016 — 2021

[Cir­cu­lar chart: 2016: 45ha 2017: 26 I ha 2018:960ha 2019: 1385ha 2020: 1810ha 2021:236l ha]

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Soil

Soils cov­er much of the sur­face of the earth, form­ing the found­a­tion of all ter­restri­al eco­sys­tems and ser­vices. They sup­port key pro­cesses in bio­mass pro­duc­tion, atmo­spher­ic and hydro­lo­gic­al sys­tems. Nearly all of the food, fuel and fibres used by humans are pro­duced in soil. The func­tions provided by soil depend on a mul­ti­tude of soil organ­isms, which makes soil an import­ant part of our biod­iversity. Soil is second only to the oceans as a car­bon sink, with the poten­tial to play an import­ant role in the slow­ing of cli­mate change.

Land Cap­ab­il­ity for Agriculture

Land Cap­ab­il­ity Clas­si­fic­a­tion for Agri­cul­ture map­ping provides inform­a­tion about the poten­tial for land to be pro­duct­ive. The clas­si­fic­a­tion ranks land from I to 7 on the basis of its poten­tial pro­ductiv­ity and crop­ping flex­ib­il­ity determ­ined by the extent to which its phys­ic­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics (soil, cli­mate and topo­graphy) restrict agri­cul­tur­al use. Land clas­si­fied from I to 3.1 is con­sidered to be prime arable agri­cul­tur­al land suit­able for pro­duc­tion of a wide range of crops. Land clas­si­fied as 3.2 – 4.2 is suit­able for mixed agri­cul­ture (primar­ily cer­eals, for­age crops and grass), with land clas­si­fied as 5.1 – 5.3 hav­ing the poten­tial to be improved grass­land. Land clas­si­fied as 6.1 – 7 is restric­ted to rough graz­ing due to severe lim­it­a­tions that pre­vent improve­ment by mech­an­ic­al means.

The major­ity of land in the Nation­al Park, around 93%, is clas­si­fied as agri­cul­tur­al cap­ab­il­ity 5 – 7. Around 6% is clas­si­fied as suit­able for mixed agri­cul­ture (classes 3.2 – 4.2). Only 0.1%, a small area around Strath­don on the edge of the Nation­al Park, is iden­ti­fied as 3.1, prime arable agri­cul­tur­al land.

[Map: Land cap­ab­il­ity for agri­cul­ture clas­si­fic­a­tion for the Park]

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Peat­land: Car­bon Rich Soils

Car­bon rich soils are import­ant car­bon sinks that if exposed, start to release car­bon back into the atmo­sphere. Car­bon rich soils such as those cre­ated by peat­land hab­it­ats, are very slow to regen­er­ate due to the cool wet con­di­tions stunt­ing plant growth. The soils of the Park are par­tic­u­larly rich in soil organ­ic mat­ter because the cool, moist cli­mate encour­ages the reten­tion of decom­posed organ­ic mater­i­als. Peat, the most car­bon rich soil, cov­ers an extens­ive area of the Park.

NatureScot 2016 map­ping of car­bon rich soils in the Park

[Map image]

[Legend: Class 0. Min­er­al soils. Peat­land hab­it­ats are not typ­ic­ally found on such soils. Class 1. All veget­a­tion cov­er is by pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­ats. All soils are cabon-rich soil and deep peat. Class 2. All veget­a­tion cov­er is dom­in­ated by pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­ats. All soils are car­bon-rich soil and deep peat. Class 3. Dom­in­ant veget­a­tion cov­er is not pri­or­ity peat­land hab­it­at but is asso­ci­ated with wet acid­ic type. Occa­sion­al peat­land hab­it­ats can be found. Mostly car­bon-rich soils, with some areas of deep peat. Class 4. Area unlikely to be asso­ci­ated with peat­land hab­it­ats or wet and acid­ic type. Area unlikely to include car­bon-rich soils. Class 5. Soil inform­a­tion takes pre­ced­ence over veget­a­tion data. No peat­land recor­ded. May show signs of bare soil. All soils are car­bon-rich soil and deep peat.]

Cli­mate is import­ant in determ­in­ing the equi­lib­ri­um of soil organ­ic mat­ter con­tent. Changes in cli­mate, such as the increase in heavy rain­fall events dur­ing winter iden­ti­fied in Top­ic I (cli­mat­ic factors) are likely to dis­rupt the equilibrium.

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Deer

There are five spe­cies of deer found with­in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Their dis­tri­bu­tion is strongly influ­enced by human activ­ity and land management:

• Red deer, a nat­ive spe­cies, have long been cent­ral to the cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al her­it­age of the High­lands. They are com­mon in most upland areas of the Park, although they can also be found in woodlands.

• Roe deer, anoth­er nat­ive spe­cies, are also numer­ous in the Park. They are more com­monly seen on lower ground in and around woodlands.

• Sika deer, a non-nat­ive spe­cies, are present in much smal­ler num­bers. Pop­u­la­tions of sika are found in the Mon­adh­liath moun­tain range, with indi­vidu­als also some­times seen in oth­er areas with­in the Park.

• Reindeer are found in the Park, mainly in the upland areas around Cairngorm and Crom­dale hills. Once a nat­ive spe­cies, they were re-intro­duced in 1952, and form a unique semi-domest­ic herd man­aged by the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre

• Fal­low deer were intro­duced to Bri­tain in the 11^th cen­tury. There is a small pop­u­la­tion in the south­ern sec­tion of the Park in Perthshire.

Deer num­bers need to be man­aged to min­im­ise neg­at­ive effects on hab­it­ats, as well as to ensure there is suf­fi­cient food and shel­ter to main­tain the health and wel­fare of the deer.

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Wild Deer Pop­u­la­tion Report, 2021, Strath Caulaidh Ltd

Cur­rently, there is insuf­fi­cient data avail­able to quanti­fy the over­all num­ber of wild deer in the Nation­al Park, their dis­tri­bu­tion across hab­it­at types or the region­al dens­it­ies of wild deer with a high level of con­fid­ence. How­ever, in work for CNPA (2021, report in pre­par­a­tion), Strath Caulaidh were able to estim­ate a pos­sible range of val­ues, with an estim­ated sum­mer pop­u­la­tion of all spe­cies of wild deer of around 50,000 – 80,000 (11 to 17 wild deer per km²).

There have been his­tor­ic changes in the num­bers, dens­it­ies and dis­tri­bu­tion of wild deer across the Nation­al Park, which have influ­enced present day num­bers, dens­it­ies and dis­tri­bu­tion. There are marked region­al (eg north, south), loc­al (between glens) and hab­it­at type (eg wood­land, open range) dif­fer­ences in the pop­u­la­tion dynam­ics of wild deer in the Nation­al Park. There are also dif­fer­ences between the dif­fer­ent wild deer spe­cies found in the Nation­al Park (red, roe, fal­low, sika). This all influ­ences the con­di­tion of upland habitats.

For wild red deer, heli­copter count data from NatureScot was used by Strath Caulaidh Ltd to extra­pol­ate pop­u­la­tion inform­a­tion. Over the past 5 years, 68% of the Nation­al Park was sub­ject to heli­copter counts for wild red deer (not all of the Nation­al Park is suit­able for heli­copter counts, eg areas of wood­land). This found that the major­ity (80%) of wild red deer were in the East and West Gram­pain deer man­age­ment areas.

The mean dens­ity of wild red deer across the entire range was found to be 11.5 per km². There was how­ever vari­ation between areas with­in the Nation­al Park, with the low­est dens­ity being recor­ded in the Cairngorms at 4.0 per km² com­pared to 20.2 per km² in the West Grampi­ans (map 1).

In addi­tion, in sum­mer the dis­tri­bu­tion of wild red deer shifts to upland feed­ing areas, which has the effect of con­cen­trat­ing their num­bers. This res­ults in a vari­ation between sum­mer and winter pop­u­la­tion counts. In sum­mer the mean dens­ity for the Nation­al Park was cal­cu­lated at 19.4 per km², com­pared to 16.3 per km² in winter (maps 2 and 3). Com­par­ing Cairngorms and West Grampi­ans, the sum­mer counts were 6.8 and 34.1 per km² respect­ively, with the winter counts being 5.8 and 30.1 per km² (maps 2 and 3).

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[Map 1: Entire range mean wild red deer dens­ity poly­gons for the main areas coun­ted reg­u­larly with­in the Nation­al Park] [Map 2: Winter wild red deer dens­ity poly­gons for the main areas coun­ted reg­u­larly with­in the Nation­al Park.]

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[Map 3: Sum­mer wild red deer dens­ity poly­gons for the main areas coun­ted reg­u­larly with­in the Nation­al Park]

Man­age­ment of wild deer num­bers through cull­ing occurs through­out the Nation­al Park. Cull fig­ures, which include all spe­cies of wild deer, have changed over time as wild deer pop­u­la­tions change and envir­on­ment­al pri­or­it­ies require few­er wild deer in order to reduce dam­age to fra­gile upland hab­it­ats and woodlands.

Cull records from NatureScot, ana­lysed by Strath Caulaidh Ltd for CNPA (2021, report in pre­par­a­tion) show that almost half a mil­lion wild deer of all spe­cies (478,216) have been culled in the Nation­al Park since 1990. There was a peak of cull­ing activ­ity from the early-to-mid 2000’s (24,728 wild deer culled in 2005-06). Before and after this time, culls were lower.

In the Nation­al Park, annu­ally 77.1% of culled wild deer are red deer, with 22.3% being roe, 0.2% fal­low and 0.4% sika deer. Around 5.2% of wild deer (12,147) were culled on agri­cul­tur­al land, with 23.9% culled in wood­lands. The rest were culled on open ground, usu­ally upland areas.

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Grouse Moor­land and Muirburn

The sport of shoot­ing driv­en red grouse on heath­er moor­lands is unique to the UK and has occurred since the mid-19^th cen­tury. Today, pro­duct­ive grouse moors are mainly found in Scot­land and the North of Eng­land, where moor­lands are act­ively man­aged at dif­fer­ent intens­it­ies by game­keep­ers to provide these wild birds with favour­able breed­ing and rear­ing hab­it­ats. Spe­cif­ic man­age­ment activ­it­ies include muir­burn, pred­at­or con­trol and the use of med­ic­ated grit to improve grouse health. The fol­low­ing map shows the extent of heath­er moor­land with­in the Nation­al Park, cov­er­ing just over 40% of its land area. It should be noted that not all of this land is man­aged for grouse shooting.

[Map: Heath­er Moor­land Areas]

Con­trolled muir­burn cre­ates a mosa­ic of young and old heath­er stands, provid­ing food and shel­ter. It alsore­duces the fuel load and the intens­ity of any wild­fires. Poorly man­aged muir­burn can lead to destruc­tion of rare hab­it­ats, car­bon emis­sions, impact on water qual­ity and cre­ation of wildfires.

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Muir­burn

With­in the Nation­al Park there is a high con­cen­tra­tion of muir­burn in the east­ern Cairngorms. With­in this area there are clusters of loc­a­tions with the highest rates of burn­ing (dark­er col­oured areas on the map below).

[Map: Per­cent­age of rough grazed land burned per 1km grid cell]

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Muir­burn

Here strip burn­ing is being act­ively prac­ticed – in most cases to sup­port driv­en grouse enter­prises. There is also a wider area with low intens­ity burn­ing (light­er col­oured areas) where either less intens­ive forms of grouse shoot­ing are being prac­ticed (walked-up or over-point­er shoot­ing) or the grouse shoot­ing enter­prise is now absent, with the grouse butts present and the evid­ence of burn­ing both being rel­ict features.

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Fresh­wa­ter and Wet­land habitats

The Park con­tains part of eight river catch­ments, although two have only a very small por­tion with­in the Park (map below). The largest catch­ment is for the River Spey.

[Map: River catchments]

The latest data avail­able from SEPA provides inform­a­tion on the eco­lo­gic­al status of the 154 water­bod­ies ana­lysed by SEPA in the Park. This shows that, since the envir­on­ment­al baseline assess­ment was car­ried out for the cur­rent NPPP in 2015, the num­ber of water­bod­ies in high, good or mod­er­ate eco­lo­gic­al status has increased by around 8% while the num­ber in bad or poor status has increased by 1.3%.

Water­body status fig­ures for water­bod­ies in the Park

Status	2015, num­ber of water­bod­ies	2017, num­ber of water­bod­ies	% Change
High	13	12	-0.65%
Good	80	87	+4.55%
Mod­er­ate	26	32	+3.90%
Poor	18	16	-1.30%
Bad	2	6	+2.60%

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Water Frame­work Directive

The Dir­ect­ive requires all water fea­tures above a cer­tain size threshold to be clas­si­fied using a sys­tem of five qual­ity classes – high, good, mod­er­ate, poor and bad, with ground­wa­ter clas­si­fied as good or poor. The require­ments of the WFD are part of Scot­tish legis­la­tion, and set out the clas­si­fic­a­tion of water bod­ies describ­ing by how much their con­di­tion or status dif­fers from near nat­ur­al con­di­tions. Water bod­ies in a near nat­ur­al con­di­tion are at high status, while those whose qual­ity has been severely dam­aged are classed as being in bad status.

[% of water­bod­ies by status in the Park]

[Charts: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018]

From the avail­able inform­a­tion, between 2013 and 2017 the num­ber of water­bod­ies in the Park in high status have increased slightly, the num­ber in good and mod­er­ate status have declined, while the num­ber in poor status have increased four-fold.

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Geo­di­versity

Under­pin­ning, and in some instances, part of, soils is geo­di­versity. Many of the issues affect­ing soils also affect geo­di­versity, for example acid­i­fic­a­tion, erosion and unsym­path­et­ic land man­age­ment. Geo­di­versity is the vari­ety of rocks and soils laid down over mil­len­nia, which com­bine to cre­ate that land­forms that are the basis for landscapes.

Geo­lo­gic­al Sites of Spe­cial Sci­entif­ic Interest (SSSI) and Geo­lo­gic­al Con­ser­va­tion Review (GCR) sites (map below) aim to safe­guard wider geo­di­versity with­in the Park.

[Map of geo­lo­gic­al SSSIs and GCR sites wholly or par­tially with­in the Park]

There are 16 geo­lo­gic­al and mixed (geo­lo­gic­al and bio­lo­gic­al) SSSIs with­in the Nation­al Park, cov­er­ing an area of some 680 km², around 15% of the Park area, with 39 GCR sites cov­er­ing an area of around 592 km².

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Geo­lo­gic­al Min­er­al Resources

The Brit­ish Geo­lo­gic­al Soci­ety iden­ti­fies 4 act­ive quar­ries oper­at­ing in the Park (https://​www​.bgs​.ac​.uk/​G​e​o​I​ndex/), based on 2014 inform­a­tion. How­ever addi­tion­al quar­ries are known to oper­ate or have con­sent in the Park. For example, Carn Dhom­h­nu­ill Bhain quarry near Dal­whin­nie and Broom­hill quarry near Dul­nain Bridge were gran­ted con­sent to recom­mence extrac­tion activ­it­ies in 2018. The quar­ries in the Park can extract a vari­ety of min­er­al resources mainly used for con­struc­tion works.

[Map: Quar­ries in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park]

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Fur­ther Information

Land Man­age­ment in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​t​o​g​e​t​h​e​r​/​l​a​n​d​-​m​a​n​a​g​e​ment/

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Forest Strategy:

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​/​f​o​r​e​s​t​-​s​t​r​a​tegy/

Deer Frame­work for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park:

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​/​d​e​e​r​-​f​r​a​m​e​work/

A stra­tegic over­view of wild deer pop­u­la­tion dynam­ics in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park:

https://​cairngorms​.co​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​2​1​/​0​6​/​C​N​P​A​-​2​0​2​0​-​D​e​e​r​-​P​o​p​u​l​a​t​i​o​n​-​D​y​n​a​m​i​c​s​-​R​e​p​o​r​t​-​F​I​-​N​A​L​-​0​4​0​2​2​1.pdf

Peat­land Action Project:

https://www.nature.scot/climate-change/nature-based-solutions/peatland-action-project

Map­ping the areas and man­age­ment intens­ity of moor­land act­ively man­aged for grouse:

https://sefari.scot/document/part-3-mapping-the-areas-and-management-intensity-of-moorland-actively-managed-for-grouse