Formal board meeting - paper 3 and annex 1: Active Cairngorms - 28 November 2025

For Inform­a­tion

Title: Act­ive Cairngorms

Pre­pared by: Colin Simpson, Head of Vis­it­or Ser­vices and Act­ive Travel, Adam Streeter-Smith, Recre­ation and Access Man­ager and Lucy Ford, Ranger Manager

Pur­pose The Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan is one of a series of plans that sit below the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP). Along with the Sus­tain­able Tour­ism and Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plans, these plans col­lect­ively describe the Park Author­ity and part­ners’ work in rela­tion to tour­ism, vis­it­or facil­it­ies and ser­vices and the man­age­ment of vis­it­or impacts on the Park. This report gives Board mem­bers over­sight of pro­gress towards the plan’s object­ives and is being presen­ted to the Board in autumn so as to give a timely over­view of vis­it­or related activ­ity that took place over the pre­ced­ing sum­mer season.

Recom­mend­a­tions The Board is asked to: α) Note the pro­gress towards deliv­ery of the object­ives con­tained with­in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan. b) Note the report on the vis­it­or focussed activ­it­ies of the Park Author­ity and part­ner ranger ser­vices dur­ing the 2025 sum­mer season.

Stra­tegic context

1. The Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan and describe in more detail spe­cif­ic activ­it­ies that will be under­taken by the Park Author­ity to sup­port the deliv­ery of the NPPP object­ives. In par­tic­u­lar this plan describes key activ­it­ies that will be under­taken by the Park Author­ity to achieve the fol­low­ing Park Plan objectives:

α) Nature

i. A7: Fire Management

ii. A13: Spe­cies Recov­ery b) People i. B9. Men­tal and phys­ic­al health ii. B10. A Park for All iii. B11. Volun­teer­ing and out­door learn­ing c) Place

i. C5. Visitors to the National Park

ii. C8. Access­ible path and cycle net­work iii. C9. High-qual­ity vis­it­or experience

Stra­tegic risk management

1. The activ­ity described in this report assists in mit­ig­at­ing stra­tegic risk no. 11 — ​“Unreal­ist­ic expect­a­tions of what the Park Author­ity and its part­ners can achieve …”. The actions with­in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan were agreed with likely resource implic­a­tions and avail­ab­il­ity considered.

2. In view of the cur­rent high pro­file of wild­fires and the forth­com­ing fire byelaw (described on page 4 below) an increase in expect­a­tions as to what the Park Author­ity and part­ners can achieve is pos­sible as the byelaw and asso­ci­ated activ­ity is introduced.

Implic­a­tions

1. There are no stra­tegic resource implic­a­tions arising from this report as it describes past activ­ity. How­ever, the con­tinu­ation of those activ­it­ies and deliv­ery of many of the tar­gets in the lifespan of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan (2024−2028) does have resource implic­a­tions. These are con­sidered as part of the annu­al budget set­ting process.

2. The incom­ing fire byelaw will require some addi­tion­al activ­ity around the time of imple­ment­a­tion as described in para­graph 12 below. This will require addi­tion­al fin­an­cial and staff resources some of which have already been provided for in the ²⁰²⁵⁄₂₆ oper­a­tion­al budget. Fur­ther resource require­ments will require to be con­sidered as part of the budget set­ting pro­cess for fin­an­cial year ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇.

Suc­cess measures

1. The NPPP and Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan both con­tain a num­ber of tar­gets and meas­ures and this report, and its appen­dices detail the pro­gress towards achiev­ing these.

Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan Progress

1. Annex 1 provides an update on pro­gress towards each of the object­ives included with­in the plan. Fol­low­ing the struc­ture of the plan itself, these updates are sep­ar­ated into sec­tions reflect­ing the sev­en pri­or­ity areas for action: a) Man­aging for vis­it­ors b) Min­im­ising impacts on sens­it­ive spe­cies and hab­it­ats c) Ranger ser­vices d) Pub­lic health in the out­doors e) Volun­teer Cairngorms f) Youth and out­door learn­ing g) Paths, trails and out­door access duties

End of sea­son vis­it­or report

1. The launch of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan dur­ing 2024 gave the oppor­tun­ity to bring togeth­er report­ing on a num­ber of dif­fer­ent areas of activ­ity related to people’s exper­i­ence of and use of the out­doors. In par­tic­u­lar it gave the oppor­tun­ity to report on vis­it­or man­age­ment activ­it­ies as part of the deliv­ery of a stra­tegic plan rather than as a stan­dalone area of work. This activ­ity forms the first three pri­or­it­ies of the in the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan, and as with the oth­er areas of activ­ity, pro­gress reports are giv­en in Annex 1.

2. How­ever, through the Park Author­ity ranger ser­vice and part­ner ranger ser­vices that make up a wider ​“fam­ily of ranger ser­vices”, much more data is col­lec­ted on their engage­ment activ­ity. In recog­ni­tion of the fact that this is one of the high­er pro­file areas of work the Park Author­ity under­takes, fur­ther details includ­ing key data from Park Author­ity and part­ner ranger ser­vice patrols is giv­en below.

Park Author­ity Ranger Service

1. The Park Author­ity cur­rently employ five per­man­ent rangers (three based in Badenoch and Strath­spey and two based in Deeside) but dur­ing sum­mer 2025 employed a fur­ther 12 sea­son­al rangers, most from April to late Octo­ber and four train­ee rangers from June to Septem­ber. These included rangers based loc­ally who covered the Deeside and Angus Glens area while Badenoch and Strath­spey based rangers also patrolled loc­ally and in Moray and Perth and Kinross ensur­ing all areas of the Park were covered. 1100 patrols were under­taken by the Park Author­ity rangers in 2025 a decrease of 21% com­pared with 2024. This was largely due to early sea­son recruit­ment chal­lenges in Badenoch and Strathspey.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ranger Ser­vice Patrol Data

Patrols	Engage	Neg­at­ive engage­ments	Tents	Overnight Camper vans	Dogs on a lead	Dogs off lead	Live Fires/​BBQs	Old Fires/​BBQs	Bags lit­ter
2025	1100	5983	30	1144	755	1457	156	109	475	1076
2024	1398	6829	29	1275	1042	3925	369	225	558	1553

Part­ner Ranger Services

1. In addi­tion to the dir­ect employ­ment of rangers, the Park Author­ity also sup­port 14 ranger ser­vices with activ­it­ies such as train­ing to assist in the con­sist­ency of ranger pro­vi­sion and mes­saging. Six part­ners who oper­ate in some of the most highly pres­sured areas of the Park con­tin­ued to receive fin­an­cial sup­port towards their ranger ser­vices – Atholl Estate, Rothiemurchus Estate, Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) Aber­nethy, Bal­mor­al Estate, Glen Tanar Char­it­able Trust and Angus Alive (Glen Doll). Across the full fam­ily of ranger ser­vices around 50 rangers were employed dur­ing sum­mer 2025 although num­bers at any one-time var­ied due dif­fer­ing recruit­ment and employ­ment pat­terns. Those part­ners also gath­er patrol data using a sim­il­ar frame­work but as not all part­ners under­take or record indi­vidu­al patrols in the same way the data excludes that measure.

Engage engage­ments	Neg­at­ive engage	Tents	Overnight Camper vans	Dogs on a lead	Dogs off lead	Live Fires/​BBQs	Old Fires/​BBQs	Bags lit­ter
2025*	23139	95	3254	3928	4530	1342	213	360	578
2024	24138	99	1857	5313	3911	1057	122	273	205

• As some part­ners have yet to sup­ply final peri­od fig­ures the 2025 data is incomplete.

Intro­duc­tion of a Cairngorms Fire Byelaw

1. In Septem­ber 2025, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) approved the Park Authority’s applic­a­tion to imple­ment a sea­son­al fire byelaw cov­er­ing the Nation­al Park. While this will not come into force until April 2026, pre­par­at­ory work has been under way in recent months. A num­ber of mem­bers of the Vis­it­or Ser­vices team atten­ded a ses­sion with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park col­leagues who are involved in the imple­ment­a­tion and enforce­ment of their exist­ing byelaws. This has proved invalu­able in help­ing to devel­op the rel­ev­ant pro­cesses for the imple­ment­a­tion and enforce­ment of the fire byelaw.

2. In order to ensure aware­ness of the byelaw a range of com­mu­nic­a­tions activ­it­ies will be required includ­ing the use of prin­ted mater­i­als, press activ­ity, web­site, social media activ­ity and sig­nage (includ­ing both road signs to raise aware­ness of the byelaw and site-based signs indic­at­ing that fires are not per­mit­ted and that a byelaw is in place). In order to ensure a con­sist­ent approach to mes­saging geo­graph­ic­ally, across dif­fer­ent part­ner organ­isa­tions and across all dif­fer­ent medi­ums a com­mu­nic­a­tions con­tract was awar­ded in early Octo­ber. The con­tract­or has already under­taken con­sulta­tion with Park Author­ity staff and a num­ber of part­ners, includ­ing those who reg­u­larly deal dir­ectly with vis­it­ors and are cur­rently final­ising a com­mu­nic­a­tions approach to use in the above activities.

3. Close work­ing with a num­ber of part­ners will be key to suc­cess­ful imple­ment­a­tion of the byelaw – in par­tic­u­lar with police Scot­land, the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (SFRS) and landown­ers who man­age pop­u­lar vis­it­or sites. Dir­ect engage­ment with pub­lic sec­tor part­ners has com­menced and a series of one-to- one ses­sions are under way with the key landown­ers as to the implic­a­tions of the fire byelaw for them and what their powers and respons­ib­il­it­ies are in rela­tion to the byelaw and its exemptions.

Ranger team restructure

1. The intro­duc­tion of the fire byelaw in April 2026 will have implic­a­tions for the Park Authority’s ranger ser­vice not only in terms of enforce­ment but per­haps more not­ably it will bring leg­al oblig­a­tions in terms of man­aging and report­ing on the enforce­ment pro­cess. To cater for this as well as updat­ing some ele­ments of line man­age­ment a restruc­ture of the ranger team is under way which will incor­por­ate changes to levels of respons­ib­il­ity and con­sequent revi­sions to job descriptions.

2. Dis­cus­sions have taken place over the last sea­son with Angus Alive, who in recent years have been part fun­ded to provide ranger ser­vices in Glen Doll, with a view to revis­ing the arrange­ments for ranger ser­vices in the area. Fol­low­ing an inter­im arrange­ment that is in place until March 2026, the Park Author­ity will cease fund­ing Angus Alive and instead appoint a new per­man­ent ranger, sup­por­ted by sea­son­al rangers. This would give an all-year-round pres­ence in the south of the Park, would allow addi­tion­al work such as increased engage­ment with schools in the area while also improv­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to cov­er the wider Angus Glens area more fully (as the fund­ing to Angus Alive rangers only sup­por­ted their work in Glen Doll).

Colin Simpson 14 Novem­ber 2025 colinsimpson@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Adam Streeter-Smith 14 Novem­ber 2025 adamstreetersmith@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Lucy Ford 14 Novem­ber 2025 lucyford@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Annex 1

Title	Key meas­ur­able out­puts	Deliv­ery peri­od	Status	Notes on deliv­ery in 2025
Man­aging for vis­it­ors — Influ­ence vis­it­or beha­viour through a series of ini­ti­at­ives that include:
Devel­op the Man­aging for Vis­it­ors Group to bring togeth­er key pub­lic sec­tor part­ners, land man­agers and busi­nesses and par­ti­cip­ate in nation­al arrangements.	19 Meet­ings delivered.	Ongo­ing	On track	2025⁄26 — 14 meet­ings held from 01 April 2025 to end Octo­ber with five more planned through to March 2026
Pro­mot­ing mes­saging that vis­it­ors should ​‘tread lightly’ as the main means of pro­mot­ing the Scot­tish Out­door Access Code (SOAC) in the Nation­al Park.	Updated Tread lightly in the Nation­al Park con­cer­tina leaflet.	Ongo­ing	On track	Tread lightly leaf­lets reprin­ted and dis­trib­uted in 2025
Provid­ing clear guid­ance on recre­ation­al activ­it­ies such as wild camp­ing and water sports.	Updated inform­al camp­ing advice note. Water users advice published.	Water sports 2024 Camp­ing 2026	On track	Water access guid­ance con­sul­ted on and published.
Devel­op­ing stand­ard sig­nage for key mes­sages that pro­mote the SOAC and sup­port­ing land	Caper­cail­lie and dogs on lead signs distributed.	Caper­cail­lie signs — 2024	On track	New Caper­cail­lie sign pro­duced and dis­trib­uted to rel­ev­ant land managers.
man­agers to use signs to help them pro­mote respons­ible access.	Updated SOAC posters.	SOAC posters — ongo­ing. 2025⁄26		New lamb­ing and live­stock signs pro­duced and dis­trib­uted sum­mer 2025.
Ensure a wide range of audi­ences are engaged with through the use of dif­fer­ent plat­forms, access­ible formats, and dif­fer­ent languages.	Tread lightly mes­saging avail­able in for­eign languages.		On track	Tread Lightly leaf­let avail­able in 10 lan­guages — avail­able to down­load from Nation­al Park website.
Work with Police Scot­land and Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice to reduce rur­al crime and ensure appro­pri­ate enforce­ment meas­ures are in place.	Stand­ard oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures agreed with all rel­ev­ant forces.	Ongo­ing	On track	Train­ing with both SFRS and Police Scot­land delivered to rangers early in the sea­son. Police Patrols with rangers organ­ised in Glen­more and Deeside with oper­a­tion­al orders writ­ten for each Police divi­sion involve­ment. Guid­ance for ranger ser­vices on when and how to escal­ate incid­ents pro­duced in part­ner­ship with Police Scot­land and issued to Ranger services.
Devel­op ded­ic­ated cam­paigns for new audi­ences in part­ner­ship with part­ners to pos­it­ively influ­ence spe­cif­ic vis­it­or beha­viours such as fires, toi­let­ing and road­side or overnight parking.	Revised and update Cairngorms Busi­ness part­ner­ship SOAC materials.	2026⁄27	On hold
Con­sult on options around fire byelaws for the Nation­al Park	10-week pub­lic con­sulta­tion completed.	2024⁄25	Com­plete	Fire byelaw approv­al now received from SG and pre­par­at­ory activ­ity under way.
Invest­ig­ate the viab­il­ity of a vis­it­or wel­come app for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, provid­ing guid­ance to vis­it­ors and giv­ing real time data on vis­it­or distribution.	Vis­it­or facing app developed.	2026⁄27	On hold
Devel­op our cap­ab­il­ity to col­lect and ana­lyse inform­a­tion about vis­it­or dis­tri­bu­tion and beha­viour spa­tially using digit­al technology.	Annu­al vis­it­or data report published	2025⁄26	On track	Cur­rently test­ing use of Act­iveX data with a focus on Anagach Woods, Boat of Garten Woods and paths includ­ing the Charter Chest Path.
Deliv­er a pro­gramme to sup­port best prac­tice with­in the land man­age­ment sec­tor on safe­guard­ing access rights to reduce access obstructions.	Two events delivered	2026⁄27	On hold
Min­im­ising impacts on sens­it­ive spe­cies and habitats
Devel­op and util­ise meth­ods for meas­ur­ing the impact of dis­turb­ance on sens­it­ive hab­it­ats and spe­cies – to be	Mon­it­or­ing and eval­u­ation frame­work in place	Ongo­ing	On track	Cur­rently test­ing use of Act­iveX data with a focus on Anagach Woods, Boat Woods and paths includ­ing the Charter Chest Path.
used to build a strong evid­ence base to help inform future man­age­ment measures.
Util­ise a spa­tial plan to pri­or­it­ise the man­age­ment of reduc­tions in recre­ation­al dis­turb­ance to spe­cies and habitats	Map pub­lished	Ongo­ing	On track	Dis­cus­sions under­way with key part­ners to identi­fy key man­age­ment meas­ures for sens­it­ive sites.
Reduce the impact of recre­ation on ground-nest­ing birds by imple­ment­ing site-spe­cif­ic actions and ini­ti­at­ives with land managers.	Man­age­ment agree­ments in place.	Ongo­ing	On track	Ranger patrols under­taken on iden­ti­fied sens­it­ive sites”Paws on the Plat­eau” cam­paign­be­ing imple­men­ted by RSPB at Abernethy.“Lek it Be” patrols completed.Specific advice and sig­nage developed for Leking (rogue) Caper­cail­lie at Boat of Garten and Abernethy.Capercaillie maps being developed, wader sig­nage draf­ted, sig­nage for Avie lochan being developed.
Sup­port­ing com­munit­ies to cre­ate and devel­op dog walk­ing spaces to meet the needs of dogs and reduce pres­sure on sens­it­ive areas for wildlife.	Boat of Garten pilot delivered two com­munity dog walk­ing ini­ti­at­ives delivered.	Ongo­ing	On track	Boat of Garten com­munity dog walk­ing pilot to be con­tin­ued with phase two respond­ing to feed­back. Col­lab­or­at­ing with Con­ser­va­tion Team and Anagach Woods Trust to devel­op ​“listen­ing ses­sion” with key dog walk­ing representatives,
Build know­ledge and sup­port by devel­op­ing an act­ive com­munity of dog own­ers with inform­a­tion and understanding.	Com­munity dog walk­ing group in place	Ongo­ing	On hold	sur­vey loc­al dog walk­ers and devel­op an action plan to reduce risk of disturbance.
Devel­op fur­ther with users best prac­tice for bikes includ­ing sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of the Moun­tain Bik­ing Recre­ation Man­age­ment Plan for Badenoch and Strathspey.	Trail Feath­ers devel­op­ment plan delivered.	Ongo­ing	On track	Map­ping of inform­al trails on sens­it­ive sites in Aberdeenshire.Grant fund­ing provided to Badenoch and Strath­spey Trail Asso­ci­ation to deliv­er trail academy ses­sions focused on female moun­tain bikers, includes prin­ciples of redu­cing disturbance.
Update guid­ance on out­door events to pro­mote best practice.	Updated guid­ance published.	2025	On track	Draft com­pleted, cir­cu­lated for extern­al com­ment. Fur­ther work under way to ensure con­sist­ency with Nation­al event guid­ance updates
Work with wild­life and activ­ity guides to devel­op spe­cif­ic loc­al train­ing and codes of con­duct for sens­it­ive sites and spe­cies eg, twin flower, beavers, rap­tors and leks.	Code of con­duct pro­duced Train­ing ses­sions run.	Ongo­ing	On track	Lek it Be cam­paign ran in Spring.Supported dawn ranger patrols.
Paths, trails and out­door access
Review and pub­lish an updated Core Paths Plan by end of 2026.	Com­munity con­sulta­tion under­taken. Plan published.	Con­sulta­tion 2025⁄26, Plan pub­lished 2026	On track	Inform­al con­sulta­tion stage com­pleted, sum­mary con­sulta­tion report circulated.
Refresh the Cairngorms Loc­al Out­door Access For­um (LOAF) to ensure it plays an act­ive role in advising on all aspects of the Act­ive Cairngorms Action Plan	New mem­bers recruited	Ongo­ing	On track	LOAF group met in per­son for pro­ject vis­it in June, and two new mem­bers recruited to the group. As of April 2025, addi­tion­al two mem­bers have been recruited. Three exist­ing mem­bers due to step down by end of 2025.
A stra­tegic review of mon­it­or­ing at indic­at­or sites (low­land paths, upland paths, trail-heads, core paths and Long Dis­tances Routes)	Audit of coun­ters completed.	2026⁄27	On track	Cur­rently test­ing use of Act­iveX data with a focus on Anagach Woods, Boat of Garten Woods and paths includ­ing the Charter Chest Path.
Use of people coun­ters and oth­er data gath­er­ing tech­no­lo­gies to meas­ure usage on key paths and car parks.	Review of Act­ive X sys­tem and agreed way forward	Ongo­ing	On track	Cur­rently test­ing use of Act­iveX data with a focus on Anagach Woods, Boat of Garten Woods and paths includ­ing the Charter Chest Path.
Main­tain­ing a suite of com­munity path leaf­lets in	All leaf­lets fea­ture path grading	Ongo­ing	On track	Strath­don leaf­let reviewed and pub­lished in col­lab­or­a­tion with loc­al path group.Training day run for rangers in path
paper and access­ible digit­al formats.	Leaf­lets reviewed on five yearly cycle			grad­ing sur­vey. Paths re-sur­veyed in Tomin­toul, Boat of Garten and Nethy Bridge in pre­par­a­tion for leaf­let reviews.
Sup­port­ing part­ners to deliv­er appro­pri­ate pub­lic­a­tions (eg Hill Tracks Leaflet).	Updated Hill Tracks Leaflet	2027⁄28	On hold
Ensure paths around com­munit­ies are well- sign­posted and way­marked with good com­munity map boards in every com­munity across the Nation­al Park	Sign­post plan developed Pro­gramme of sign replace­ment Walk pan­els installed in communities	Ongo­ing	On track	Install­a­tion of new way­mark­ing along Spey­side Way from Aviemore to Park bound­ary com­pleted March 2025.New way­mark­ing pro­duced for Crath­ie / pyr­am­id walk.Strathdon walks pan­el in production.Supporting Kin­gussie path group to re-way­mark and sign Tom Baraidh walk.
Sup­port and expand the num­ber of com­munity path groups to deliv­er path pro­jects through fund­ing, train­ing and shar­ing best practice	Com­munity path group train­ing event delivered	2025/2026	On track	Online sur­vey dis­trib­uted to key groups in 2025 to ascer­tain their needs and sup­port require­ments. Com­munity Path Group Gath­er­ing planned for spring 2026.
Review the Upland Path Audit to identi­fy invest­ment pri­or­it­ies for the upland path net­work and devel­op innov­at­ive tech­niques to reduce upland path erosion.	Revised upland path audit published.	2025⁄26	On track	Out­door Access Trust for Scot­land near­ing com­ple­tion of audit.
Expand the exist­ing ​‘Adopt a path’ scheme to pro­mote volun­teer-led approach to cov­er all upland paths in the Park	Increase from 37 upland paths to 40 upland paths	Ongo­ing	On track	Cur­rently 40 adopted
Pub­lic Health and the Outdoors
Embed path­ways to green health and nature with­in GP Prac­tices, social care and education.	Num­ber of refer­rals via GP and self-refer­ral options.	Ongo­ing	On track	Total refer­rals 78 (July 2025). On-going meet­ings with GP prac­tices. Some refer­ral path­ways with tech­nic­al issues being invest­ig­ated by NHS.
Main­tain up-to-date inform­a­tion for green health oppor­tun­it­ies and pro­mote widely with­in communities:	Monthly What’s On for Badenoch and Strath­spey Net­work Con­tent pub­lished on Think Health-Think Nature Website	Ongo­ing	On track	Monthly Green Health Net­work updates are ongoing.
Devel­op ​“green health” inform­a­tion on the Park Author­ity website	Green Health web page	2025⁄26	On track	New web­site updated with ded­ic­ated green health pages
Pro­mote Green Health Week	Green Health Week activ­it­ies delivered	Ongo­ing	On track	Pro­mo­tion includ­ing Nature con­nec­tion blog and shar­ing of Green Health Week cal­en­dar as a part of Green Heath Week 2025. Green Health Link Work­er delivered a
Fur­ther devel­op Green Health oppor­tun­it­ies with key players:	Con­tin­ued email cor­res­pond­ence to the Badenoch and Strath­spey Green Health Net­work with monthly event updates, quarterly in-per­son meet­ings, and pro­mo­tion / fund­ing of appro­pri­ate training.	Ongo­ing	On track	suc­cess­ful event for Nation­al Park referrals.About 70 mem­bers on the Green Health Net­work list (July 2025) with monthly emails on-going.Training delivered to the net­work in col­lab­or­a­tion with Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS) in Decem­ber 2024 and Janu­ary 2025.Neurodivergence train­ing delivered in Septem­ber 2025.
Work with Ranger Ser­vices to integ­rate Green Health into the wider learn­ing and engage­ment work (eg school vis­its, Juni­or Rangers etc).	Col­lab­or­at­ive pro­jects and var­ied path­ways to Green Health.	2025⁄26	On track	In-per­son meet­ings now six monthly.Green Health Link Work­ers are invest­ig­at­ing more oppor­tun­it­ies for young people and meth­ods of refer­ring fam­il­ies into the nature prescription.
Liaise with spe­cif­ic com­munity sup­port organ­isa­tions to sup­port par­tic­u­lar groups, eg carers and young carers, eth­nic minor­it­ies, sea­son­al work­ers etc.	Ongo­ing — tar­geted sup­port through Green Health Week	Ongo­ing	On track	Planned engage­ment with Schools to share the self-refer­ral path­way to families.Green Health Link Work­ers enga­ging with adult Eng­lish for speak­ers of oth­er lan­guages to share path­ways to eth­nic minorities.
Devel­op demen­tia-friendly walks in each com­munity with­in the Nation­al Park.	Num­ber of Health Walks accred­ited as ​‘Demen­tia Friendly’.	Ongo­ing	On track	Check­list of what is a demen­tia friendly path being developed with AlzScot.Boat of Garten iden­ti­fied as poten­tial demen­tia friendly route, and assessed to estab­lish what is needed to bring up to stand­ard and cre­ate an exem­plar path.
Devel­op and pro­mote a health walks pro­gramme in each com­munity of the Park.	Num­ber of Health Walks supported.	Ongo­ing	On track	Three new Health Walks (Tomin­toul even­ing, Kin­craig, Aviemore) now estab­lished and walk­ing inde­pend­ently without reg­u­lar Park Author­ity staff support.Health Walk Lead­er Hand­book final­ised and cir­cu­lated to all Health Walk Leaders.Three Train­ing Ses­sions in diary end 2025.
Devel­op tar­geted pro­mo­tion activ­it­ies for those liv­ing sedent­ary life­styles (for example, Green Health Week, World Men­tal Health Day, Nature Fest­iv­al etc.) to deliv­er and pro­mote Green Health opportunities.	Green Health Week / Requires sup­port from Communications	Ongo­ing	On track	Blog writ­ten for Green Health Week incudes tips to con­nect to nature from home.
Ranger Ser­vices
Coordin­ate and devel­op the fam­ily of ranger ser­vices to	Devel­op­ment of region­al ranger groups	Ongo­ing	On track	Region­al ranger group meet­ings have taken place quarterly with each of the
ensure cov­er­age and deploy­ment across the whole Nation­al Park and align­ment with nation­al arrangements.	and for each a sched­ule of meet­ings, train­ing and work pro­grammes. Annu­al ranger get togeth­er. Devel­op­ment of Ranger hand­book and induc­tion pro­gramme. Con­sist­ent data col­lec­tion across ser­vices to feed into nation­al report­ing programmes.			three region­al groups as well as the annu­al Fam­ily of Ranger Ser­vices con­fer­ence that took place in Septem­ber. These meet­ing facil­it­ate part­ner­ship work­ing around patrolling, vis­it­or man­age­ment, fire man­age­ment byelaw updates, Juni­or Rangers, edu­ca­tion activ­it­ies, train­ee rangers and con­tinu­ing pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment oppor­tun­it­ies. The Fam­ily of Ranger Ser­vices Share­Point hub is con­tinu­ing to facil­it­ate part­ner­ship work­ing activ­it­ies and the shar­ing of news updates etc.
Devel­op the Ranger Man­agers Group that brings togeth­er pub­lic sec­tor and site-spe­cif­ic ranger ser­vices to ensure a coordin­ated approach and to feed into the nation­al arrange­ments for rangers.	Annu­al man­agers meet­ing. Involve­ment in agen­das and minutes from region­al ranger group meet­ings and annu­al get together	Ongo­ing	On track	A news­let­ter will be issued to ranger man­agers in Decem­ber 2025 updat­ing on the work of the Fam­ily of Ranger Ser­vices 2025.
Devel­op the pro­gramme of train­ing to devel­op best prac­tice and a com­mit­ted and skilled workforce.	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Fam­ily of Ranger Ser­vices annu­al train­ing programme,	Ongo­ing	On track	Train­ing was delivered to CNPA ranger ser­vice and part­ner ranger ser­vices in 2025.
shaped from region­al ranger groups and the core com­pet­en­cies of a pro­fes­sion­al ranger as iden­ti­fied by Scot­tish Coun­tryside Rangers Asso­ci­ation (SCRA).
Devel­op skills and new career path­ways to help people into employ­ment with ranger services.	Train­ee ranger train­ing pro­gramme developed pro­mot­ing this and oth­er pro­grammes ran by partners	Ongo­ing	On track	2025 Train­ee Ranger pro­gramme has been fur­ther developed with train­ee ranger posts being full-time posts for the first time this year.
Volun­teer Cairngorms — Increase the num­ber of volun­teer rangers to meet the needs of part­ners and the Park Authority:
Deliv­ery of recruit­ment programmes.	Annu­al recruit­ment aim­ing for tar­gets as set out in NPPP whilst ensur­ing num­bers are sus­tain­able and appropriate.	Ongo­ing	On track	24 Volun­teer Rangers recruited and trained in Spring 2025. Recruit­ment of up to 12 addi­tion­al Volun­teer Rangers cur­rently ongo­ing with anti­cip­ated train­ing begin­ning early 2026.
Mon­it­or and eval­u­ate the demand and need of part­ners who provide oppor­tun­it­ies for Volun­teer Rangers:	Ongo­ing part­ner­ship reviews with exist­ing part­ners. Engage­ment with new poten­tial partners	Ongo­ing	On track	End of 2025 sea­son reviews cur­rently being under­taken with all part­ners involved in Volun­teer Ranger activities.
Main­tain high qual­ity volun­teer man­age­ment and the Volun­teer Cairngorms portal	Ongo­ing sup­port, train­ing and cel­eb­ra­tion events for Volun­teer Ranger (VR) team. Con­tin­ue to pop­u­late and grow oppor­tun­it­ies on CER­VIS portal for VRs Ongo­ing sur­veys and feed­back to mon­it­or qual­ity of volun­teer exper­i­ence. Reg­u­lar review of staff capa­city with line manager.	Ongo­ing	On track	Addi­tion­al Volun­teer rangers recruited as above.CERVIS portal con­tin­ues to be pop­u­lated with volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and monitored.Annual sur­vey of volun­teer rangers was com­pleted in March and responses and ana­lysed to inform­ing actions for 2025⁄26.Volunteer feed­back was pos­it­ive including:Overall, to what extent has the pro­gramme met your expect­a­tions?- 4.7/5.Overall, how likely would you be to recom­mend to a friend that they get involved as a Volun­teer Ranger?- 4.8÷5
Main­tain and deliv­er high qual­ity Volun­teer Ranger Pro­gramme and mon­it­or capa­city of the Park Author­ity to deliv­er it.		Ongo­ing	On track	1135 indi­vidu­al sign-ups to 2025 Volun­teer Ranger activ­it­ies (includ­ing train­ing) across 22 part­ner organisations/​landowners.Review con­ver­sa­tions being held with Volun­teer Rangers iden­ti­fied as fall­ing beneath two days month reques­ted par­ti­cip­a­tion level.
Devel­op and man­age the Volun­teer Exper­i­ence Pro­gramme (VEP) to spe­cific­ally encour­age new and under- rep­res­en­ted groups into volun­teer­ing (eg carers, young carers, eth­nic minor­it­ies, LGB­TQ people, dis­ab­il­ity audi­ences, sea­son­al work­ers, etc).	Engage with a spe­cif­ic num­ber of new groups each year to sup­port VEP visits.	Ongo­ing	On track	Six groups have been involved with the VEP through­out 2025, with new oppor­tun­it­ies to add sev­er­al more part­ners in 2026 being explored includ­ing con­nect­ing dif­fer­ent land part­ners with char­it­ies. FA review of char­ity part­ners is ongo­ing with pos­it­ive qual­it­at­ive feed­back received.
Increase volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies linked to green health activ­it­ies, and sup­port a vibrant com­munity of volun­teer Health Walk Lead­ers across the Park to deliv­er a Health Walks Pro­gramme with a health walk in every community.	Engage with part­ners to sup­port devel­op­ment and advert­ise­ment of green health volun­teer­ing activ­it­ies Ensure exist­ing Health Walk volun­teers are sup­por­ted through train­ing, cel­eb­ra­tion and sup­port events / meet­ings Provide ongo­ing sup­port to com­munit­ies seek­ing to develop	Ongo­ing	On track	Volun­teer Rangers sup­port­ing the deliv­ery of green health activ­it­ies includ­ing sup­port­ing Bad­aguish Out­door Demen­tia Resource Centre cli­ents to make use of Able2Adventure bikesNature activ­it­ies for chil­dren through Roots and Shoots.Opportunities to volun­teer in nature con­tin­ue to be advert­ised through online portal.
their own green health opportunities.
Advert­ising oppor­tun­it­ies through the Volun­teer Cairngorms portal.	Grow the num­ber of part­ners and oppor­tun­it­ies advert­ised on the portal	Ongo­ing	On track	Volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies con­tin­ue to be advert­ised to the pub­lic through the CER­VIS portal.Opportunities with 18 part­ners have been advert­ised this year res­ult­ing in 487 indi­vidu­al sign-ups through CER­VIS, and addi­tion­al sign-ups dir­ectly with partners.
Devel­op­ing / sup­port­ing a series of aware­ness / recruit­ment events	Events held. Dis­tri­bu­tion of pub­li­city materials.	Ongo­ing	On track	Blogs for Health Walks writ­ten and shared widely and pieces for Health Walks have appeared in Cairn publication.Volunteer Cairngorms news­let­ter con­tin­ues to used to raise aware­ness of opportunities.Early-stage dis­cus­sions tak­ing place for pub­lic volun­teer­ing aware­ness rais­ing and cel­eb­ra­tion event tak­ing place in 2025⁄26.
Pro­mot­ing value of envir­on­ment­al volun­teer­ing through media outlets.	Ongo­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions through the Park Author­ity and Volun­teer Cairngorms channels.	Ongo­ing	On track	Com­mu­nic­a­tions con­tin­ue to be ongo­ing through the Park Author­ity (social media and Cairn magazine) and Volun­teer Cairngorms chan­nels (newsletter).Specific volun­teer­ing oppor­tun­it­ies offered as part of UK-wide Nation­al Parks Big
Cre­ate a Cairngorms Lit­ter Net­work to coordin­ate and encour­age com­munity-based lit­ter pick­ing and sup­port rel­ev­ant lit­ter­ing aware­ness campaigns.	Num­ber of online meetings	Ongo­ing	On hold	Week­end of Volun­teer­ing with asso­ci­ated col­lab­or­at­ive pub­li­city with NPUK.Significant activ­ity is already under way led by com­munit­ies and often sup­por­ted by loc­al author­ity waste teams so what role the Park Author­ity might play needs reconsidered.
Young People and Out­door Learning
Pro­mote and man­age the use of the John Muir Award (JMA) in the Nation­al Park to pro­mote and inspire young people.	Num­ber of JMA delivered in schools and by out­door centres.	Ongo­ing on annu­al basis	On track	A new Cairngorms spe­cif­ic award scheme (Duthchas Award) has been developed to replace the John Muir Award and is being tested in 2025.
Deliv­er Juni­or Ranger pro­grammes to six loc­al sec­ond­ary schools and monthly Juni­or Ranger activ­it­ies in Badenoch and Strath­spey and Deeside	Six Juni­or Ranger schools pro­grammes delivered.Two monthly pro­grammes delivered.	Ongo­ing	On track	Juni­or Ranger pro­grammes delivered to the six sec­ond­ary schools with­in or asso­ci­ated with the park.Monthly Juni­or Ranger pro­grammes delivered on Deeside and Badenoch and Strathspey.
Deliv­er edu­ca­tion ses­sions for all schools in the Nation­al Park to pro­mote SOAC and out­door learning.	Num­ber of ses­sions delivered to schools.	Ongo­ing	On track	In 2025 48 ses­sions were delivered across 19 schools by the Park Author­ity Ranger team reach­ing 1558 pupils.
Col­lab­or­ate with oth­er pub­lic sec­tor part­ners to deliv­er and devel­op nation­al edu­ca­tion and skills-devel­op­ment pro­grammes Pro­mote and man­age the Cairngorms Nation­al Park edu­ca­tion travel grant which sup­ports school and oth­er edu­ca­tion groups to access the Park.	Attend nation­al SG Out­door Learn­ing meet­ings. Num­ber of travel grants awarded.	Ongo­ing	On track	Staff attend­ing reg­u­lar SG Out­door Learn­ing Group.44 grants issued.
Devel­op and facil­it­ate the Cairngorms Youth Action Team events programme.	Deliv­er res­id­en­tials, youth volun­teer­ing days and admin­is­ter youth fund.	Ongo­ing	On track	Cairngorms Youth Action have had reg­u­lar online meet­ings and a week­end devel­op­ment residential.Round six of the Cairngorms Youth Fund has been com­pleted with over 100 pro­jects sup­por­ted with total fund­ing of over £100,000 and round sev­en is under way in autumn 2025.
Sup­port con­tinu­ing youth col­lab­or­a­tion with oth­er nation­al parks, youth ini­ti­at­ives and events to share and cel­eb­rate best prac­tice, eg through Euro­Parc or Youth Par­lia­ment events.	Par­ti­cip­ate in Nation­al Parks UK and Euro­Parc youth devel­op­ment projects.	Ongo­ing	On track	Attend­ance at NPUK Learn­ing and Engage­ment Group meetings.