Annex 4: Oper­a­tion­al Plan ²⁰²⁶⁄₂₇

---

Page 1 of 15

Cor­por­ate plan Aim	Park Author­ity deliv­ery	Thumb­nail sketch	Resource (£)	Cap­it­al (£)	NRF (£)	C2030 (£)	Oper­a­tion­al plan (FTE)	C2030 (FTE)
A1 Net zero	Deliv­er­ing baseline report, mon­it­or and annu­ally report on pro­gress towards Cairngorms Nation­al Park achiev­ing net-zero and sub­sequently act­ing as a car­bon sink.	Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Fund		344,500
	Lead on deliv­er­ing Cairngorms 2030 (C2030), empower­ing people to con­trib­ute to net zero ambitions.	See C2030 programme					0.25
A2 Wood­land expansion	Deliv­er 1,000 hec­tares (ha) of new or expan­ded wood­land with new and innov­at­ive uses of the Forest Grant Scheme as part of C2030.	Wood­land cre­ation schemes will enhance biod­iversity and landscape.				123,000 Plus fund­ing giv­en dir­ectly to partners
	Pro­mote and admin­is­ter a Wood­land Chal­lenge Fund to sup­port land man­agers in the pre­par­a­tion of Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS) applications.	The Wood­land Chal­lenge Fund can cov­er pre-applic­a­tion sur­vey costs which often sty­mie wood­land cre­ation at an early stage.	12,500				0.5	0.3
A3 Peat­land restoration	Sup­port and fin­ance the res­tor­a­tion of peat­land, with 6,500ha restored by 2027.	The pro­vi­sion­al pro­gramme includes 19 pro­jects. Six will be dir­ectly delivered by Peat­land officers and the remainder by agents. The team will con­tin­ue to devel­op pro­jects for 2027⁄28 delivery.	30,000	3,500,000			8.5	0.5

---

Page 2 of 15

Cor­por­ate plan Aim	Park Author­ity deliv­ery	Thumb­nail sketch	Resource (£)	Cap­it­al (£)	NRF (£)	C2030 (£)	Oper­a­tion­al plan (FTE)	C2030 (FTE)
A4 Deer and herb­i­vore impacts	Work with Deer Man­age­ment Groups (DMG), as part of C2030, to deliv­er stra­tegic land man­age­ment plans to sup­port a reduc­tion in deer numbers.	Deer reduc­tions are being achieved in some areas of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park through a Sec­tion 7 Agree­ment. The fund­ing will be applied to action the deer policy with­in Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 4 and 5.	10,000
	Spe­cies man­age­ment — geese	Res­id­ent greylag geese in the Dul­nain strath and parts of Strath­spey have been sub­ject to con­trol for 18 months. There is some evid­ence that res­id­ent num­bers have reduced sig­ni­fic­antly. Num­bers will be assessed by Septem­ber 2025 and decisions made on future control.	15,000				0.8	0.2
	Invest­ig­ate and tri­al mod­els which achieve policy out­comes and retain skills and employ­ment in the sector	Red Deer Hind Incent­ive Scheme — depend­ent on receiv­ing income from SG.	40,000 (40,000)
	C2030 3 Nature Recovery					540,000
A5 Moor­land management	Lead the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship (ECMP) as a demon­stra­tion of sus­tain­able moor­land man­age­ment deliv­er­ing both pub­lic and private interests.	Sup­port­ing the East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship and wider moor­land man­age­ment, includ­ing rap­tor monitoring.	27,000				0.4
A6 Gamebird management

---

Page 3 of 15

Cor­por­ate plan Aim	Park Author­ity deliv­ery	Thumb­nail sketch	Resource (£)	Cap­it­al (£)	NRF (£)	C2030 (£)	Oper­a­tion­al plan (FTE)	C2030 (FTE)
	Estab­lish baseline and assess impact of gamebird releases on nat­ive biod­iversity. Pro­duce report and recom­mend­a­tions on poten­tial options based on impact assessment.	A part­ner­ship pro­ject with Game and Wild­life Con­ser­va­tion Trust (GWCT) is under­way to determ­ine num­bers of gamebirds released with­in six catch­ments in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Fur­ther work in sub­sequent years will seek to determ­ine the eco­lo­gic­al and socio-eco­nom­ic impacts of those releases.	3,000				0.1
A7 Fire management	Devel­op an integ­rated wild­fire man­age­ment plan.	Action­ing the com­pleted Integ­rated Wild­fire Man­age­ment Plan (IWMP) to increase wild­fire resi­li­ence across the Park.	10,000	30,000			0.1
A8 Farm­ing	Deliv­er C2030 Future Farm­ing pro­jects sup­port­ing farm­ers in achiev­ing car­bon neut­ral­ity and help­ing address the twin crises in the con­text of a prof­it­able farm business.	Increas­ing biod­iversity and busi­ness resi­li­ence across farms in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. Nature Friendly Farm­ing — ie waders, spe­cies rich grass­land and flood resi­li­ence pro­jects / initiatives.	100,000			185,050	0.4	0.6
	Work with part­ners to sup­port farm­ers and crofters through transitions.	Sup­port­ing deliv­ery of enhan­cing farm­land biod­iversity and build­ing resi­li­ence to cli­mate change along­side pro­duct­ive farm busi­nesses. Sup­port biod­iversity and car­bon auditing.
A9 Fresh­wa­ter systems	Deliv­er C2030 Cli­mate Resi­li­ent Catch­ment pro­jects demon­strat­ing res­tor­a­tion com­pli­ment­ary to sur­round­ing land use that bene­fits com­munit­ies and wildlife.					1,117,633	0.4	1.6

---

Page 4 of 15

Cor­por­ate plan Aim	Park Author­ity deliv­ery	Thumb­nail sketch	Resource (£)	Cap­it­al (£)	NRF (£)	C2030 (£)	Oper­a­tion­al plan (FTE)	C2030 (FTE)
		Sup­port Catch­ment Man­age­ment Part­ner­ships and Fish­er­ies Boards. Three full time employ­ees (FTE) sup­por­ted to devel­op and deliv­er res­tor­a­tion pro­jects across