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Formal Board Paper 1 - CEO Report and Convener update

Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 1 of 15

For inform­a­tion

Title: Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer Report and Con­vener update Pre­pared by: Grant Moir, Chief Exec­ut­ive Officer

Pur­pose

To high­light to Board Mem­bers the main stra­tegic areas of work that are being dir­ec­ted by Man­age­ment Team. These are areas where sig­ni­fic­ant staff resources are being dir­ec­ted to deliv­er with part­ners the aspir­a­tions of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP).

Glen­more and Aber­nethy Wildfire

  1. The Glen­more and Aber­nethy wild­fire was one of the largest incid­ents that has occurred since the Nation­al Park was estab­lished. There are many key issues that need to be taken for­ward as we look to ensure that the Nation­al Park and Scot­land are more pre­pared for these incid­ents in the future. This goes from land man­age­ment and aer­i­al sup­port to com­mu­nic­a­tions and resources. The Park Author­ity will be tak­ing part in the debriefs asso­ci­ated with the wild­fire. The CEO also sits on the nation­al wild­fire over­sight group which is review­ing the nation­al wild­fire action plan. Wild­fire man­age­ment will also be a major part of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan that will be con­sul­ted on from mid-October.

Nature and Cli­mate Change

  1. Glen­more and Aber­nethy Wild­fire – The Park Author­ity is chair­ing the post wild­fire Envir­on­ment­al Recov­ery Group, one of three sub­groups estab­lished by the Loc­al Resi­li­ence Part­ner­ship. The group’s mem­ber­ship includes affected land man­agers, NatureScot and Rur­al and Envir­on­ment­al Sci­ence and Ana­lyt­ic­al Ser­vices (RESAS). The remit is to estab­lish extent and impact of the wild­fire and devel­op a cos­ted mon­it­or­ing and recov­ery plan. In col­lab­or­a­tion with the Uni­ver­sity of West­ern Scot­land, drone and Light Detec­tion and Ran­ging (LiD­AR) sur­veys are tak­ing place to col­lect inform­a­tion on burn extent, intens­ity and identi­fy where it stopped and areas of resilience.

  2. Land-Based Busi­ness – A con­tract has been awar­ded, and work is com­men­cing on sup­port­ing land-based busi­ness trans­ition and rur­al skills devel­op­ment as part Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 2 of 15

of the Cairngorms 2030 (C2030) Stra­tegic Land Man­age­ment Plan (SLMP) deliv­ery. Estates in the pro­gramme iden­ti­fied that new legis­la­tion, cli­mate adapt­a­tion and chan­ging eco­nom­ic, social and envir­on­ment­al con­texts are cre­at­ing new demands, pres­sures and oppor­tun­it­ies on exist­ing estate man­age­ment mod­els and work­force strategies to provide the skills rur­al work­ers will need in the future. The Future Rur­al Skills pro­gramme is co-designed and developed with estate own­ers and man­agers from the five estates with­in the West Grampi­an SLMP area, start­ing Septem­ber 2026.

  1. Muir­burn – From 15 Septem­ber it will become an offence to carry out muir­burn in Scot­land without a licence. The aim of the licence is to help ensure that muir­burn is car­ried out safely and appro­pri­ately. It is a con­di­tion of licen­cing that prac­ti­tion­ers must have regard to the Muir­burn Code, which has recently been updated in col­lab­or­a­tion with stake­hold­ers, includ­ing the Park Author­ity. With over 50% of the Nation­al Park clas­si­fied as moor­land (heath­land and peat­land) the imple­ment­a­tion of muir­burn licen­cing could have sig­ni­fic­ant effect on the Nation­al Park’s land­scapes, and we will be work­ing closely with NatureScot on ensur­ing and mon­it­or­ing compliance.

  2. Fresh Water Pearl Mus­sels – A licence has been secured from NatureScot to tri­al an innov­at­ive tech­nique for attach­ing micro­scop­ic pearl mus­sel lar­vae to the gills of young sal­mon, which are then to be released into new areas on the Avon and Fid­dich. This will be a sig­ni­fic­ant step for­ward to aid pop­u­la­tion recov­ery. A fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sel breed­ing facil­ity has been set up at the Spey Fish­ery Board and NatureScot are cur­rently con­sid­er­ing a licence applic­a­tion to take mus­sels into the facil­ity later this year.

Plan­ning and Place

  1. Vis­it­or Infra­struc­ture — Work­ing with Nethy Bridge com­munity the Park Author­ity has com­pleted the replace­ment of the All­t­more bridge which gives access to the school and wood­land. The form­al open­ing for the new bridge was on 10 July.

  2. Out­door Access Activ­it­ies — The new ​‘Paths around Tomin­toul’ leaf­let has been pub­lished. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 3 of 15

  3. A toolkit to sup­port com­munity devel­op­ment of more access­ible paths has been final­ised, (sum­mary of path cri­ter­ia, how to assess and audit poten­tial access­ible paths), with train­ing delivered to groups at the Com­munity Path Group gath­er­ing on 13 June. Work­ing with the Cairngorms Trust an Access­ible Paths Fund for com­munity groups has been put in place, with an ini­tial £16,000 alloc­ated as a grants fund sup­port­ing access­ib­il­ity improve­ments to exist­ing paths. New resources have pro­duced to sup­port respons­ible motorhome and camper­van park­ing includ­ing a new leaf­let, webpage and online facil­it­ies map.

  4. Coun­tryside Ranger Activ­ity – A full team was in place in advance of the main hol­i­day sea­son with the final addi­tions being four train­ees who star­ted in June (and con­tin­ued until mid-Septem­ber). This included more week­end spe­cif­ic staff to allow increased patrols over sum­mer week­ends when more fire byelaw related activ­ity was anticipated.

  5. 15 Juni­or Rangers took part in this year’s three days exped­i­tion from Bal­mor­al estate through to Glen Doll in the Angus Glens, led by the two seni­or rangers and Bal­mor­al Estate ranger Geor­gia. Along the way Juni­or rangers took part in some prac­tic­al con­ser­va­tion tasks with part­ner ranger ser­vices and picked up camp­craft and nav­ig­a­tion skills along the way

  6. Glen­more and Aber­nethy Wild­fire — The Recre­ation and Access Team have been work­ing with the Ranger Ser­vice and land man­agers to devel­op a webpage and map show­ing what’s open and what’s still closed as well as pro­du­cing tem­por­ary sig­nage for the cur­rent exclu­sion zone which were sub­sequently put out by rangers at all main access points to the exclu­sion zone and main inform­a­tion points in the wider com­munity. The ranger team played a key role in sup­port­ing part­ner ranger ser­vices dir­ectly affected by the wild­fire, not­ably Roy­al Soci­ety for the Pro­tec­tion of Birds (RSPB) deliv­er­ing extra patrolling activ­it­ies at their sites whilst their own team was re-deployed at the act­ive fire front. Fol­low­ing the reopen­ing of some areas Rangers con­tin­ued to sup­port part­ners through enga­ging with the gen­er­al pub­lic and pre­vent­ing indi­vidu­als enter­ing the exclu­sion zone.

  7. Trans­form­ing Trans­port — Trans­port work has con­tin­ued to trans­ition from pro­ject devel­op­ment into deliv­ery, with Cycle Friendly Cairngorms grant con­tracts issued to sup­port com­munity-led act­ive travel and sus­tain­able trans­port pro­jects. Design Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 4 of 15

devel­op­ment has pro­gressed across key infra­struc­ture pro­jects in Aviemore, Nethy Bridge, New­ton­more and Boat of Garten, includ­ing act­ive travel improve­ments, cycle park­ing, e‑bike char­ging facil­it­ies and a way­find­ing ini­ti­at­ive with con­struc­tion depend­ent on secur­ing extern­al fund­ing and pre­par­ing recom­mend­a­tions to ensure pro­jects remain deliv­er­able with­in pro­gramme timescales.

  1. Beha­viour change pro­grammes have con­tin­ued to expand, with ​“bike buses” now oper­at­ing in eight schools with Bal­later and Strath­don added to the earli­er Badenoch and Strath­spey initiatives.

  2. Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) — In July, the Scot­tish Government’s (SG) Divi­sion for Plan­ning and Envir­on­ment­al Appeals (DPEA) con­firmed that the Evid­ence Report for our next LDP had suc­cess­fully passed their ​‘gat­echeck’ review pro­cess. This offi­cially enables us to move onto the next stage of pre­par­ing the draft LDP. In par­al­lel with the gat­echeck assess­ment pro­cess, a Call for Sites and Ideas was under­taken from late March until mid-June. This enabled com­munit­ies, indi­vidu­als, organ­isa­tions and landown­ers to sug­gest ideas that could help shape future plan­ning policies in the new LDP and to sug­gest poten­tial devel­op­ment sites for con­sid­er­a­tion. All sub­mis­sions are now being assessed and will be taken into account dur­ing pre­par­a­tion of the draft LDP. An updated timetable out­lining the next stages in pre­par­ing the new LDP will be presen­ted to Board for approv­al in November.

  3. Plan­ning case­work — Since the last form­al Board meet­ing on 26 June, the Plan­ning Com­mit­tee has gran­ted plan­ning per­mis­sion for a segreg­ated non-motor­ised user route between Aviemore and Car­rbridge, an out­door eat­ing / drink­ing area and car park­ing pro­vi­sion at the Old Bridge Inn in Aviemore, and minor vari­ations to an ongo­ing hous­ing devel­op­ment in New­ton­more. Fol­low­ing the Plan­ning Committee’s decision on 12 June to grant plan­ning per­mis­sion for a motorhome site at Bal­later, the applic­a­tion was referred to Scot­tish Min­is­ters due to an out­stand­ing objec­tion from Scot­tish Envir­on­ment Pro­tec­tion Agency (SEPA) on flood risk grounds. On 10 July, Scot­tish Min­is­ters noti­fied us that they were not going to inter­vene by issu­ing a dir­ec­tion restrict­ing the grant­ing of con­sent for the devel­op­ment, or by call­ing in the applic­a­tion for their own determ­in­a­tion. The plan­ning per­mis­sion has there­fore now been issued in line with the Committee’s decision. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 5 of 15

Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engagement

  1. Glen­more and Strath Nethy wild­fire – The peri­od was dom­in­ated by the Glen­more and Strath Nethy wild­fire, with staff mem­bers attend­ing (at least) daily nation­al coordin­a­tion meet­ings for com­mu­nic­a­tions and pub­lic engage­ment, with col­leagues rep­res­en­ted from Police Scot­land, Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice (SFRS), High­land Coun­cil, Forestry Land Scot­land (FLS), the Met Office and mul­tiple oth­er agen­cies and key stake­hold­ers. We com­mit­ted to provid­ing twice daily updates in the early days of the fire – includ­ing reg­u­lar video updates from Gav­in Miles, Dir­ect­or of Plan­ning and Place or Grant Moir, CEO – before mov­ing to daily updates via social media, web and tra­di­tion­al media for the next couple of weeks. The tim­ing of these updates was dic­tated by nation­al com­mu­nic­a­tions mes­saging (coordin­ated largely by SFRS and Police Scot­land), which in prac­tice meant a num­ber of updates were issued later than was ideal. Des­pite this, engage­ment rates on our posts were very high, with our 118 posts reach­ing 10.6 mil­lion impres­sions, 1.2 mil­lion video views and 850,000 engage­ments in total. Along­side the updates, we have also cre­ated a ded­ic­ated land­ing page show­ing the cur­rent exclu­sion zone and related path clos­ures. This is being updated as the situ­ation on the ground changes.

  2. Media cov­er­age – Over 11,000 indi­vidu­al pieces men­tioned the Glen­more and Strath Nethy wild­fire over the past few weeks, with an estim­ated reach in the hun­dreds of mil­lions. The team facil­it­ated 50+ inter­views and / or provided quotes for broad­cast, print and online titles. Cov­er­age across loc­al and nation­al media included Sky, BBC Report­ing Scot­land, STV, Chan­nel 4 News, Chan­nel 5 News, Land­ward, New York Times, Bauer Radio, Radio 5 Live, LBC Radio. Interest in the story con­tin­ues to be high, with the BBC’s Scot­land Envir­on­ment, Energy and Rur­al Affairs Cor­res­pond­ent Kev­in Keane pro­du­cing a deep-dive into the top­ic in late August. Inter­views and fea­tures are cur­rently in pro­gress with The Her­ald, The Nation­al and two sep­ar­ate epis­odes of Landward.

  3. Recov­ery com­mu­nic­a­tions – In recog­ni­tion of the size­able impact the wild­fire has had on busi­nesses both in and around Glen­more and fur­ther afield, we have been work­ing with Vis­itScot­land and Cairngorm Busi­ness Part­ner­ship (CBP) on a coordin­ated mar­ket­ing effort to pro­mote the Cairngorms as ​‘open for busi­ness’. This will include tar­geted pub­lic rela­tions (PR) activ­ity and press famil­i­ar­isa­tion Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 6 of 15

trips, digit­al advert­ising and part­ner­ships with a num­ber of travel influ­en­cers, encour­aging vis­it­ors to seek out the Cairngorms over the autumn and winter months. This will com­ple­ment our ​‘Where Winter Comes to Life’ cam­paign, ele­ments of which are being brought for­ward to ensure the mes­sage hits home well ahead of the Christ­mas holidays.

  1. Social media – Since June our social media fol­low­ing has expan­ded sig­ni­fic­antly, with Face­book rising 11,251 (to 53,316), Ins­tagram by 8,613 (to 45,076), Linked­In by 371 (to 15,680) and You­Tube by 85 (to 1,810). Our total social media fol­low­ing now stands at 115,882, up from 74,177 a year ago an increase of 56%.

  2. Cairn magazine – The sum­mer issue of Cairn was due to hit door­steps in the middle of July, includ­ing a fea­ture on peat­land res­tor­a­tion, an update on the fire byelaw cam­paign, news about Nature Res­tor­a­tion Fund pro­jects and an inter­view with Angus Glens Coun­tryside Ranger George Pat­ter­son. Unfor­tu­nately, on the eve of dis­tri­bu­tion, the wild­fire at Glen­more occurred and – giv­en the sens­it­iv­ity of the situ­ation – we took the dif­fi­cult decision to pull the magazine from cir­cu­la­tion. A cer­tain num­ber (up to around 20% of cop­ies) had already been pos­ted to house­holds at the point of can­cel­la­tion, but we were able to have the major­ity removed from cir­cu­la­tion. The team have iden­ti­fied vari­ous oppor­tun­it­ies to repur­pose con­tent from the magazine, from upcom­ing columns to web­site art­icles etc.

  3. C2030 Com­munit­ies Fund – After nine in-depth ses­sions, the C2030 co-design pan­el final­ised the struc­ture of the £1 mil­lion fund ahead of its launch in late August. They decided that any­thing could be fun­ded as long as it was with­in the four C2030 themes; that a min­im­um 10% of the over­all fund pro­jects would pri­or­it­ise Equity Diversity and Inclu­sion; and that there would be three dif­fer­ent grant sizes avail­able: small (£500 — £5,000), medi­um (£5,001 — £50,000) and large (£50,001 – £100,000). The team will sup­port applic­ants through the pro­cess and ensure fund­ing oppor­tun­it­ies are effect­ively com­mu­nic­ated, includ­ing case stud­ies of suc­cess­ful grantees, an inter­act­ive map of fun­ded pro­jects and ongo­ing road­show events to pro­mote the fund and encour­age ideas-shar­ing between poten­tial applic­ants. Expres­sions of interest are being sought from mem­bers of the loc­al com­munity to join an 11-per­son Com­munit­ies Fund For­um, who will make Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 7 of 15

decisions on who receives medi­um and large grant awards over the next few years.

  1. UK Nation­al Parks Con­fer­ence – A range of mater­i­als and activ­it­ies have been pulled togeth­er to sup­port the deliv­ery of the UK Nation­al Parks Con­fer­ence, tak­ing place at Mac­don­ald Aviemore Resort from 16 – 18 Septem­ber. From a full prin­ted pro­gramme to web­site resources, pop-up ban­ners, del­eg­ate packs and spe­cif­ic work­shops / field trips, the team have been busy ensur­ing that the event meets the needs of del­eg­ates and spon­sors alike. A video­graph­er will be cap­tur­ing events as they unfold and the event will be pro­moted extens­ively on and offline.

  2. Recent and upcom­ing events – Through­out the sum­mer, the Engage­ment team has delivered a range of events con­nec­ted to the C2030 pro­gramme. They sup­por­ted attend­ance at the Tar­land Show by Park Author­ity staff and coordin­ated a large staff pres­ence at the Grant­own Show, show­cas­ing the work of the farm­ing, beaver, nature and ranger teams. This was fol­lowed by a large pres­ence at the Lon­ach Gath­er­ing and the Greentown Show in Grant­own. At all these events, staff were briefed on the recent wild­fire and sup­por­ted by seni­or man­age­ment staff where required. The next phase of work is plan­ning a series of form­al con­sulta­tion events for the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) con­sulta­tion. These will be held across the Nation­al Park and the team is col­lab­or­at­ing with Edin­burgh Uni­ver­sity again to devel­op sev­er­al inter­act­ive ele­ments to facil­it­ate the con­sulta­tion (build­ing on the suc­cess of our Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan (LDP) tri­al last year).

  3. Cul­tur­al her­it­age, com­munit­ies and cre­at­ive events – The annu­al gath­er­ing of com­munity coun­cils and devel­op­ment trusts is planned for Thursday 29 Octo­ber at Nethy Bridge Com­munity Centre. The event will include a ses­sion on com­munity resi­li­ence / response fol­low­ing the wild­fire, a chance to feed into the NPPP con­sulta­tion, a piece on com­munity own­er­ship and on enga­ging with the plan­ning pro­cess, plus the usu­al mix of work­shops and net­work­ing. Else­where, a fol­low up Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Net­work event is com­ing up on Tues­day 13 Octo­ber at Boat Hall, and the newly formed Cairngorms Cre­at­ive Col­lect­ive have organ­ised a series of cre­at­ive work­shops across the Nation­al Park over the com­ing months. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 8 of 15

Organ­isa­tion­al Development

  1. Staff­ing update: Since the end of June, the fol­low­ing staff changes took place:

  2. Staff leav­ing the organisation: a) Olly Dav­ies, Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment, leaves us at the end of August as he moves to a pro­moted role with a new organisation.

  3. Staff join­ing the organisation: a) Alas­dair Den­nis joined the Park Author­ity as Fin­ance Man­ager. This was a re-shaped role fol­low­ing Mark Tucker’s resig­na­tion. b) Jon Digby joined the Park Author­ity on a tem­por­ary con­tract as a Con­ser­va­tion Officer to help deliv­er nature res­tor­a­tion fund pro­jects in the Nation­al Park.

  4. Staff appoint­ments: a) Fol­low­ing the intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess, Brenna Jessie has been appoin­ted to replace Olly Dav­ies as Head of Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Engage­ment. Brenna was pre­vi­ously the Park Authority’s Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Manager.

  5. Live recruit­ment: a) Eilidh Todd (Com­munit­ies and Rur­al Devel­op­ment Man­ager) and Kaye Nicolson (Media Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager) are both going on mater­nity leave towards the end of the year. Both posts are now being recruited, on a fixed-term mater­nity cov­er basis. They are cur­rently being advert­ised through the intern­al recruit­ment pro­cess. b) Recruit­ment has also been opened to replace Brenna Jessie – Digit­al Com­mu­nic­a­tions Man­ager. c) We did not appoint to the Inform­a­tion Man­age­ment intern­ship. We have revis­ited this role, and what our spe­cif­ic needs are for this post, and real­ise that the respons­ib­il­it­ies we require are at a high­er level than would be appro­pri­ate for an intern­ship. We have there­fore re-shaped this role and have gone out to recruit­ment for the revised role of Data and Inform­a­tion Assistant.

  6. Youth Devel­op­ment — In early July, we hos­ted a group of young people from Black Pro­fes­sion­als UK to a ranger led event at Loch Mor­lich, to show­case some of our nature-based roles, and to dis­cuss career paths into these roles. The young people Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 9 of 15

were treated to a glor­i­ously hot day and were par­tic­u­larly blown away by the beauty of the area; the evid­ence of beavers in the vicin­ity and career pro­spects in the envir­on­ment sector.

  1. Organ­isa­tion­al Devel­op­ment — with both the Organ­isa­tion­al and People Devel­op­ment Strategy and Work­force Man­age­ment Strategy now adop­ted, work is com­men­cing on bring­ing those strategies to life. We are in the pro­cess of devel­op­ing our think­ing around suc­ces­sion plan­ning, skills pass­ports and innov­at­ive approaches to sup­port­ing a more agile workforce.

  2. Pub­lic Ser­vice Reform – The Pro­gramme for Gov­ern­ment set out an agenda for pub­lic ser­vice reform. This included sig­ni­fic­ant struc­tur­al reform in the envir­on­ment sec­tor. The Park Author­ity is lead­ing on the place-based approach to catch­ment resi­li­ence for Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment with the Dee and Esk being pion­eer catchments.

  3. Well­being, engage­ment and equalities: a) Over the sum­mer, we hos­ted a group of mature stu­dents from the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan who were keen to hear about our flex­ible work­ing policies and our approach to equal­it­ies and diversity. Feed­back from this ses­sion was that: ​“the stu­dents were amazed to learn how the Park Author­ity puts flex­ible work­ing con­di­tions into prac­tice. Even more impact­ful for them was see­ing firsthand a work­place cul­ture that genu­inely val­ues the whole per­son. It was clear that your employ­ees are viewed as people with unique tal­ents, goals, and lives, rather than simply work­ers filling a role. For many of the stu­dents, the exper­i­ence was truly eye-open­ing and see­ing an organ­iz­a­tion so inten­tion­ally com­mit­ted to employ­ee well-being and engage­ment was both inspir­ing and, quite hon­estly, mind-blow­ing. One of my stu­dents was so inspired by your talk that they want to imple­ment some of your ini­ti­at­ives at their own places of work, start­ing with the men’s health com­pon­ent”. b) Recruit­ment is under­way for new mem­bers of the Equal­ity Advis­ory Pan­el. We aim to have 15 mem­bers and fol­low­ing a recent review of the mem­ber­ship and meet­ings with all exist­ing mem­bers, sev­er­al posts have become vacant. We are spe­cific­ally tar­get­ing folks who have expert­ise in equal­it­ies and are able there­fore to provide informed and expert advice. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 10 of 15

Pro­cure­ment

  1. The first annu­al pro­cure­ment report, for the year 2025⁄26, has been pre­pared and was presen­ted to the Audit and Risk Com­mit­tee at the committee’s meet­ing in June. The report details a total spend of £4.5 mil­lion across 53 con­tracts. This spend included both reg­u­lated, and unreg­u­lated pro­cure­ments, includ­ing those using Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment frame­work agreements.

  2. The report high­lights the Park Authority’s com­mit­ment to pro­cure­ment that aligns with stra­tegic object­ives, embed­ding prin­ciples such as Fair Work First, sus­tain­ab­il­ity, and eth­ic­al prac­tices. It also emphas­izes the deliv­ery of com­munity bene­fits, the strength­en­ing of loc­al sup­ply chains, and the encour­age­ment of innov­at­ive, out­comes-based solu­tions from sup­pli­ers, all in com­pli­ance with Scot­tish pub­lic pro­cure­ment legislation.

Grant Moir 03 Septem­ber 2026 grantmoir@​cairngorms.​co.​uk

Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 11 of 15

Title: Convener’s update Pre­pared by: Sandy Brem­ner, Board Convener

Pur­pose

To high­light to board mem­bers and Seni­or Man­age­ment Team (SMT) and staff of the meet­ings and events the Board Con­vener has been attend­ing since the last Form­al Board meeting.

Glen­more and Aber­nethy Wildfire

  1. Made imme­di­ate con­tact with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (SG) offi­cials regard­ing logist­ics sup­port from the first con­firm­a­tion of a wild­fire on day one, pur­su­ing aer­i­al back-up as a crit­ic­al neces­sity in con­junc­tion with the Park Author­ity seni­or staff until late evening.

  2. Early morn­ing day two, con­vened then chaired joint Park Author­ity / SG officers meet­ing, explor­ing all routes to provide urgent aer­i­al sup­port to sup­ple­ment ground oper­a­tions. Con­tin­ued to liaise with the Park Author­ity staff and SG on stra­tegic responses in the days fol­low­ing the outbreak.

  3. Atten­ded meet­ings with First Min­is­ter John Swin­ney MSP at Glen­more on July 21, stress­ing the impact of the wild­fire on com­munit­ies, busi­nesses, live­li­hoods and nat­ur­al her­it­age in one of the Nation­al Park’s most sens­it­ive areas of nature des­ig­na­tion. Explained the Nation­al Park’s extens­ive pre­par­a­tions for heightened wild­fire risks, includ­ing the devel­op­ment of the UK’s first Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan, the intro­duc­tion of a wild­fire byelaw which had already led to a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in incid­ents of recre­ation­al fires, and the fund­ing of fire­fight­ing equip­ment to sup­port estates from our Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund. Stressed the neces­sity of devel­op­ing standby access to air sup­port as a nation­al con­tin­gency, giv­en pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence and the cer­tainty of fur­ther wild­fires. At the same meet­ing, the First Min­is­ter com­mit­ted to con­sid­er­ing oth­er coun­tries’ mod­els for respond­ing to wild­fires. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 12 of 15

  4. Fol­lowed up on July 23, meet­ing the SG’s Dir­ect­or of Envir­on­ment and Forestry at St Andrew’s House, Edin­burgh, under­lin­ing the urgent case for action to plug stra­tegic gaps in fire­fight­ing capability.

  5. Hos­ted Gil­lian Mar­tin MSP, Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Cli­mate Action and Rur­al Affairs, and Ariane Bur­gess MSP High­lands and Islands, and a seni­or gov­ern­ment offi­cial on a tour of wild­fire-affected areas on July 27, before meet­ing com­munity and busi­ness lead­ers and oth­er stake­hold­ers, stress­ing the import­ance of urgent action for stra­tegic wild­fire response.

  6. Vis­ited Nethy Bridge res­id­ents at the evac­u­ation rest centre in Aviemore fol­low­ing the vol­un­tary evac­u­ation of the vil­lage, answer­ing their ques­tions about a wide range of related issues.

  7. Atten­ded Wild­fire Response meet­ings chaired by High­land Coun­cil ini­tially in Aviemore, then online, address­ing busi­ness needs, stress­ing the import­ance of avoid­ing the sub­stan­tial envir­on­ment­al impact being fol­lowed by sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic and social dam­age, with so many small firms in a pre­cari­ous pos­i­tion at what should have been their peak earn­ing period.

  8. Con­tinu­ing meet­ings and update ses­sions with SG offi­cials, MSPs, com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ives and a range of stake­hold­ers through­out, along with media state­ments and answer­ing pub­lic inquiries.

  9. Reg­u­lar vis­its, meet­ing volun­teers, sup­port staff and com­munity rep­res­ent­at­ives at the vil­lage hall in Nethy Bridge before being excluded by a SFRS’s Incid­ent Com­mand­er, along with oth­er elec­ted rep­res­ent­at­ives of pub­lic bodies.

  10. Atten­ded post-wild­fire com­munity event at Nethy Bridge, reflect­ing on the weeks build­ing up to and includ­ing the threat to the village.

  11. Wrote on behalf of the Park Author­ity Board to SG’s Dir­ect­or Gen­er­al Net Zero and seni­or EnFor Dir­ect­or­ate offi­cials for the fur­ther atten­tion of all rel­ev­ant min­is­ters, high­light­ing urgent action reques­ted regard­ing the estab­lish­ment of a nation­al on-demand aer­i­al fire­fight­ing ser­vice, and the imple­ment­a­tion of stra­tegic actions by SFRS to enhance their wild­fire cap­ab­il­it­ies. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 13 of 15

  12. On the day that the Justice Sec­ret­ary announced to Par­lia­ment the intro­duc­tion of an on-demand aer­i­al fire­fight­ing sys­tem dur­ing peri­ods of high fire risk, met with Dir­ect­or Gen­er­al Net Zero, Dir­ect­or EnFor and oth­er Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment offi­cials. Wel­comed the announce­ment and dis­cussed the need for fur­ther action to devel­op a bet­ter-integ­rated fire­fight­ing ser­vice for wildfires.

  13. Main­tained daily con­tact with seni­or Park Author­ity staff regard­ing the wel­fare of Park employ­ees, oth­er volun­teers and mem­bers of the com­munity fight­ing and sup­port­ing the wild­fire effort, and sup­port for affected businesses.

  14. Wrote to all Park Author­ity staff, prais­ing their col­lect­ive efforts through­out the course of the wildfire.

Con­vener engagements

  1. Jim Fairlie MSP – Met SG Min­is­ter for Agri­cul­ture, Mar­ine and the Islands (before the wild­fire), updat­ing on the imple­ment­a­tion of the Park Authority’s Wild­fire Byelaw, and dis­cuss­ing the oppor­tun­ity to fur­ther sup­port farm­ers and crofters through the new NPPP.

  2. Andrew Bax­ter MSP – Met Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP Andrew Bax­ter, dis­cuss­ing issues arising from the latest wild­fire, pre­par­a­tions and timetable for the next NPPP, and related matters.

  3. Tim Eagle MSP – Met High­lands and Islands MSP Tim Eagle, dis­cuss­ing stra­tegic wild­fire issues and answer­ing ques­tions about the response and les­sons learned from this and pre­vi­ous wildfires.

  4. Dawn Black MSP, Lloyd Melville MSP – Hos­ted a tour of Angus Glens with new MSPs Dawn Black (Angus North and Mearns) and Lloyd Melville (Angus South) meet­ing the Park Author­ity Rangers, landown­ers, busi­ness oper­at­ors, and offi­cials from Forestry and Land Scot­land and the Scot­tish Land Com­mis­sion, intro­du­cing them to the range of Nation­al Park work and ini­ti­at­ives includ­ing the Glen Clova Deer Lar­der. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page 14 of 15

  5. Laura Mitchell MSP – Met Moray MSP Laura Mitchell in Tomin­toul as part of an offer to meet all Par­lia­ment­ari­ans with interests in the Nation­al Park fol­low­ing May’s Holyrood elec­tions, dis­cuss­ing loc­al and Cairngorms-wide issues.

  6. Gra­ham Lead­bit­ter MP — Met Moray West, Nairn and Strath­spey MP Gra­ham Lead­bit­ter, dis­cuss­ing stra­tegic Cairngorms / Scot­tish / UK stra­tegic issues arising from the latest wild­fire and the suc­ces­sion of pre­vi­ous ones, along with pri­or­it­ies for action.

  7. Agri­cul­ture Dir­ect­or – Met SG’s Dir­ect­or Agri­cul­ture and Rur­al Eco­nomy, dis­cuss­ing wild­fire issues, also cur­rent and poten­tial policy ini­ti­at­ives to sup­port people who live and work in the Nation­al Park.

  8. Crofters and Farm­ers – Met with rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Cairngorms Crofters and Farm­ers Com­munity, dis­cuss­ing wild­fire-related issues, the upcom­ing NPPP, and the scope to explore the devel­op­ment of region­al incent­ives which deliv­er across mul­tiple agri­cul­tur­al / Park aims.

  9. NatureScot – Dis­cus­sions with the Chair of NatureScot on a range of pro­jects being developed in col­lab­or­a­tion across the Nation­al Park.

  10. Scot­tish Land and Estates (SLE) – Met the Dir­ect­or of Policy, SLE, dis­cuss­ing pre­par­a­tions for pub­lic con­sulta­tion on the new NPPP, new ini­ti­at­ives to man­age deer num­bers, and the col­lab­or­a­tion on issues around wild­fire management.

  11. Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion (GWCT) – Met the Dir­ect­or Scot­land and Dir­ect­or Edu­ca­tion of the GWCT, dis­cuss­ing a range of game a wild­life issues includ­ing a joint study on the impact of gamebird releases.

  12. Roy­al Zoolo­gic­al Soci­ety of Scot­land (RZSS) – Met the Head of Con­ser­va­tion, RZSS, dis­cuss­ing next steps in the Sav­ing Wild­cats programme.

  13. Coun­tryside Learn­ing Scot­land (CLS) – Met the Chief Exec­ut­ive of CLS dis­cuss­ing the pro­vi­sion of next-steps sup­port for sec­ond­ary school pupils seek­ing careers in coun­tryside occu­pa­tions. Form­al Board Paper 1 25 Septem­ber 2026 Page