Item7Appendix2ManagementPlan20190386NOT

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 7 Appendix 2 21/02/2020

AGENDA ITEM 7

APPENDIX 2

2019/0386/NOT

MAN­AGE­MENT PLAN

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Cran­naich Man­age­ment Plan 2020 to 2030

Scot­tish Forestry is the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment agency respons­ible for forestry policy, sup­port and regulation

S e Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba a’ bhuid­heann-ghnìomha aig Riaghaltas nah-Alha a tha an irro ri noilea­saidh tais agus riagh­ladh do choilltearachd

Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Riaghaltas na h‑Alba gov.scot

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Man­age­ment Plan

Please refer to the Man­age­ment Plan Guid­ance note for advice on how to com­plete your man­age­ment plan.

You must have an approved Man­age­ment Plan before you can apply for Forestry Grant Scheme funding.

1. Details

Man­age­ment Plan Details

Man­age­ment Plan Cran­naich Man­age­ment Plan Name: Busi­ness Ref­er­ence 290798 Main Loc­a­tion 79÷440÷0184 Num­ber: Code: Grid Ref­er­ence: Nearest town Car­rbridge NH891240 (e.g. NH 234 567) or loc­al­ity: Loc­al Author­ity: High­land Man­age­ment Plan area (hec­tares): 2.43 List asso­ci­ated maps: See pages: 25 – 31

Owner’s Details

Title: Mr Fore­name: Graeme Sur­name: Hill Organ­isa­tion: Not applic­able Pos­i­tion: Own­er Primary Con­tact Altern­at­ive Con­tact 01313322694 07821163105 Num­ber: Num­ber: Email: alasdairgraeme@​gmail.​com Address: 4 Craigcrook Grove Edin­burgh Post­code: EH4 3QF Coun­try: Scotland

Owner’s Details

Title: Miss Fore­name: Cicely Sur­name: Giles Organ­isa­tion: Not applic­able Pos­i­tion: Own­er Primary Con­tact 07851617312 Altern­at­ive Con­tact 01313322694 Num­ber: Num­ber: Email: cicelygiles@​hotmail.​com Address: ⁴⁄₅ Waver­ley Park Ter­race 2

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Edin­burgh

Post­code: EH88EP Agent’s Details

Title: Fore­name: Sur­name: Organ­isa­tion: Pos­i­tion: Primary Con­tact Altern­at­ive Con­tact Num­ber: Num­ber: Email: Address: Post­code: Country:

Man­age­ment Plan

Coun­try: Scotland

Access Con­sent – Com­plete if apply­ing for thinning

You are not obliged to give us con­sent to enter your land, how­ever if we are denied access to your land, and can­not carry out an assess­ment because of this, we may reject your applic­a­tion. This con­sent is for access to assess this applic­a­tion as well as mon­it­or com­pli­ance with any sub­sequent approv­al, where applic­able. Do you give con­sent for Scot­tish Forestry YES to access your property?

Town and Coun­try Plan­ning – Com­plete if apply­ing for thin­ning Are any of the trees to be felled sub­ject to NO a Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Order? If YES please provide details: Are any of the trees to be felled with­in a YES Con­ser­va­tion Area? If YES please provide details: The wood­land is in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and is a PAWS site. 3

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

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Declar­a­tions – Com­plete if apply­ing for thin­ning I hereby apply for a per­mis­sion to fell the trees described in this applic­a­tion and I cer­ti­fy that:

∞ I am the landown­er or an occu­pi­er of the land with writ­ten per­mis­sion of the landown­er; ∞ Where the landown­er is a busi­ness, I am author­ised to sign leg­al con­tracts on behalf of that busi­ness; ∞ If I am an act­ing on behalf of the landown­er or occu­pi­er, I have been man­dated to do so; ∞ Any neces­sary con­sents from any oth­er person(s) if required, have been obtained; ∞ I have made the neces­sary checks with the loc­al plan­ning author­it­ies regard­ing Tree Pre­ser­va­tion Orders and Con­ser­va­tion Areas; ∞ I have noti­fied all stake­hold­ers that may be affected by the felling in this applic­a­tion and sought their views pri­or to sub­mit­ting this applic­a­tion; ∞ I hereby acknow­ledge that Scot­tish Min­is­ters may pro­cess any of my per­son­al data con­tained in or relat­ing to this applic­a­tion in accord­ance with the terms of Scot­tish Forestry’s Pri­vacy Notice, a copy of which is avail­able at www.forestry.gov.scot; ∞ I have read and under­stand this applic­a­tion fully and, to the best of my know­ledge and belief, the inform­a­tion giv­en in this applic­a­tion is com­plete, true, and accur­ate; ∞ I accept that any false or mis­lead­ing inform­a­tion provided in this applic­a­tion con­sti­tutes an offence and may res­ult in any felling per­mis­sion based on this applic­a­tion being revoked at any time. [This applic­a­tion may only be signed by the own­er of the land or the occu­pi­er of that land where they have writ­ten per­mis­sion to do so. For land owned by a busi­ness it must be signed by someone with the author­ity to sign leg­al con­tracts on behalf of that busi­ness. If you are an agent sign­ing this on behalf of the afore­men­tioned you must append a copy of your mandate.]

Signed: Print: Date: 15/07/2019 Graeme Hill Graeme Hill

Cicely Cines Cicely Giles

Approv­al — to be com­pleted by Scot­tish Forestry staff: Man­age­ment Plan Ref­er­ence Num­ber: Plan Peri­od: (ten years) (day/​month/​year) From: To: 4

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

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Oper­a­tions Man­ager Approv­al Sig­na­ture: Date: (dd/​mm/​yyyy) 5

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

1. Wood­land Descrip­tion Man­age­ment Plan

Give inform­a­tion about the fol­low­ing: ∞ past man­age­ment of the wood­land ∞ cur­rent spe­cies and ages ∞ stat­utory and non-stat­utory con­straints (e.g. des­ig­na­tions, archae­olo­gic­al interests) ∞ exist­ing or poten­tial pub­lic access ∞ wood­land pro­tec­tion Use the Land Inform­a­tion Search to help you com­plete this sec­tion. For more detailed inform­a­tion on the Nat­ive Wood­land Sur­vey of Scot­land use the Scot­tish Forestry Map View­er found on our web­site: forestry.gov.scot

2.1 Maps required Provide maps to sup­port your plan, as out­lined in the guid­ance note. Please list all of the maps that you are includ­ing with your man­age­ment plan in sec­tion 1 Man­age­ment Plan Details.

2.2 His­tory of man­age­ment The Scots Pines were planted in 1962 and have sub­sequently received some thin­ning with trees spaced from 0.5 – 3m apart. Sev­er­al rides, developed to provide access for thin­ning, run par­al­lel and per­pen­dic­u­lar to the main track. We have not been able to access records of when the thin­ning took place.

2.3 Spe­cies and age The wood­land con­sists entirely of Scots Pine trees which were planted in 1962. There is one ​‘Granny’ Pine, a rem­nant of the ori­gin­al ancient wood­land. The major­ity of the wood­land is the same age and some nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion has occurred since plant­ing. How­ever, there is no evid­ence of trees less than 15 years old, which is pos­sibly due to deer brows­ing. There is an under­story of ling heath­er, blue­berry, cow­berry and mosses includ­ing glit­ter­ing wood moss (Hylo­co­mi­um splendens) and ostrich plume feath­er moss (Ptil­li­um crista- castrensis), which are ancient pine­wood indic­at­or species.

2.4 Con­straints and des­ig­na­tions The wood­land sits with­in the Cairngorm Nation­al Park in an area regarded as PAWS (Plant­a­tions on Ancient Wood­land Sites). It is classed as an upland acid nat­ive pine­wood and has a NVC (Nation­al Veget­a­tion Clas­si­fic­a­tion) of W18 nat­ive pine­woods. The wood­land is cur­rently with­in a Scots Pine seed exclu­sion zone so any new plant­ing would either have to be grown from seed from the wood or pur­chased from a sup­pli­er with­in the seed exclu­sion zone 201. The wood­land is cur­rently with­in 1km of a caper­cail­lie lek.

2.5 Pub­lic access The pub­lic have the right to roam across all areas of the wood­land. The 6

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Man­age­ment Plan

man­age­ment plan is not expec­ted to affect pub­lic access to the wood­land or the main tracks.

2.6 Wood­land Protection

Plant Health (includ­ing tree health and invas­ive or nox­ious plants) The trees with­in the wood­land cur­rently appear to be in good health. There is a threat of dothis­troma septo­spor­um (red band needle blight) to pine trees. As the wood­land was a plant­a­tion and has not received much thin­ning, the wood­land is still heav­ily stocked in areas, which increases the risk of the dis­ease devel­op­ing. Recently, an adja­cent area of wood­land con­sist­ing of lodge pole pine was felled for this reason.

Thin­ning the trees would decrease humid­ity levels and increase the air­flow with­in the stand mak­ing the micro­cli­mate less favour­able for harm­ful pathogens.

The wood­land is cur­rently with­in a Scots Pine seed exclu­sion zone so any new plant­ing would either have to be grown from seed from the wood or pur­chased from a sup­pli­er with­in the seed exclu­sion zone 201.

Deer, Live­stock and oth­er mam­mals The under­story is extens­ively browsed by deer which impacts the abund­ance of blae­berry and cow­berry and also could be respons­ible for the lack of nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion for the past 15 years. We under­stand pine martens, red squir­rels and moun­tain hares are present locally.

Grey Squir­rels We are unaware of any grey squir­rels. We have seen red squir­rels with­in the woodland.

Water & Soil (soil erosion, acid­i­fic­a­tion of water, pol­lu­tion etc.) The soil con­sists of gla­cial moraine of well-drained sand and gravel with a thin lay­er of acid­ic top­soil. We are unaware of any water pollution.

Envir­on­ment (flood­ing, wind dam­age, fire, invas­ive spe­cies etc.) The area is not sub­ject to flood­ing but there is evid­ence of trees dam­aged by the wind. The wood­land is vul­ner­able to dam­age or destruc­tion by fire. We are unaware of any invas­ive spe­cies. Our wood­land shares an access track, which could be dam­aged by large machinery car­ry­ing out com­mer­cial forestry oper­a­tions in the sur­round­ing area.

Cli­mate Change Resi­li­ence (proven­ance, lack of diversity, uni­form struc­ture) The wood­land con­sists entirely of approx­im­ately fifty-year old Scots Pine trees with one ​‘Granny Pine’. The major­ity of the wood­land is the same age with some nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion occur­ring since plant­ing. How­ever, pos­sibly due to deer brows­ing, there is no evid­ence of trees less than approx­im­ately 15 years old.

Over­all, there­fore, the wood­land is of fairly uni­form struc­ture and is lack­ing diversity in spe­cies and age. Increas­ing diversity will improve the woodland’s resi­li­ence to invas­ive pests and dis­eases that thrive in warm­er cli­mates caused by glob­al warn­ing and oth­er gradu­al changes in wood­land com­munit­ies brought about by cli­mate change. 7

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Man­age­ment Plan

1. Vis­ion and Objectives

Tell us how you intend to man­age the wood­land in the long term and your goals for its development.

3.1 Vis­ion

Describe your long term vis­ion for the woodland(s). Our long term vis­ion for Cran­naich is to restore the wood­land to a semi-nat­ur­al state and increase its eco­lo­gic­al value. We plan, over a 10 year peri­od to thin the exist­ing wood­land; plant nat­ive broadleaf trees; cre­ate a vari­ety of hab­it­ats with­in the wood­land; and sup­port oppor­tun­it­ies for nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. As a res­ult we hope to enhance wood­land biod­iversity by sup­port­ing nat­ive flora and fauna and reduce the poten­tial risks of dis­ease to the wood­land and pro­tect against cli­mate change.

3.2 Man­age­ment objectives

Give your object­ives of man­age­ment and also how you will man­age the wood­land sus­tain­ably. Your object­ives should be spe­cif­ic and you should also be able to meas­ure their outcomes.

No. Object­ives (includ­ing envir­on­ment­al, eco­nom­ic and social con­sid­er­a­tions) 1 Increase health of forest for future sus­tain­ab­il­ity. 2 Increase spe­cies diversity. 3 Cre­ate areas of var­ied habi­ti­at with­in the wood­land. 4 Pro­mote nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion to devel­op a range of tree ages. 5 Sup­port and pro­tect spe­cies present in and nearby the woodland.

1. Stake­hold­er Engage­ment (if required)

This may be required depend­ing on the work you intend on car­ry­ing out in the wood­land and the con­straints or des­ig­na­tions that have been identified.

Individual/​Date Date Organ­isa­tion con­tac­ted feed­back Response Action received Wood­land Trust 17/11/18 4/02/19 See Appendix 1 Incor­por­ate response into vis­ion and object­ives. RSPB 18/10/18 18/10/18 See Appendix 2 Incor­por­ate response into vis­ion and object­ives. CNPA 12/11/18 12/11/18 See Appendix 3 Incor­por­ate 8

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

Man­age­ment Plan response into vis­ion and object­ives. Trees for Life 17/10/18 15/02/19 See Appendix 4 Incor­por­ate response into vis­ion and objectives.

1. Ana­lys­is and Man­age­ment Strategy Ana­lyse the inform­a­tion from the pre­vi­ous sec­tions and identi­fy how to make best use of your wood­land and its resources to achieve your objectives.

5.1 Con­straints and Oppor­tun­it­ies Using the table below ana­lyse any issues raised or rel­ev­ant fea­tures with­in your wood­land and record the con­straints and opportunities.

Feature/​Issue Con­straint Oppor­tun­ity Caper­caille near to site. Mit­ig­ates against deer Use pro­tect­ive tree tubes fen­cing to pro­tect newly and stakes. planted trees. Provide shel­ter with­in under­story and increase for­aging resources. Wood Ant present with­in Not to dis­turb or shade Provide for­aging resource the wider Bad­den­gorm nests dur­ing forestry by plant­ing nat­ive Woods. work. broadleaf trees. Dothis­troma Poses threat to Scots Sens­it­ively thin tightly septo­spor­um (red band pine. spaced trees to increase needle blight). air­flow. Redu­cing humid­ity through the wood­land will make it a less favour­able micro­cli­mate for harm­ful patho­gens. Scots pine plant­a­tion. Lacks spe­cies diversity. Intro­duce nat­ive broadleaf trees to increase diversity. Even-aged plant­a­tion. Lacks struc­tur­al diversity. Plant nat­ive broadleaf trees to enhance diversity. Cres­ted tit and cross­bill Cre­ate space for nat­ur­al present with­in the wider regen­er­a­tion. Bad­den­gorm Woods. Increase areas of dead­wood to sup­port inver­teb­rates and 9

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

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Dom­in­ant heath­er cov­er High heath­er crowds Swipe some areas of in open areas. blae­berry out and over­grown heath­er to restricts oppor­tun­it­ies for allow space for oth­er nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. spe­cies and cre­ate bare ground for caper­caille chicks to dry off. Blae­berry Bumble Bee Not to dis­turb nests Main­tain and cre­ate a (Bom­bus monti­c­ola) dur­ing forestry work. range of hab­it­ats with­in present with­in the wider the wood­land includ­ing Bad­den­gorm Woods. tree roots and hum­mocks, which the bees like par­tic­u­larly. Rel­at­ively small size of Lim­its pos­sible range of Co-ordin­ate man­age­ment plot. operations/​plan with oth­er plot inter­ven­tions. own­ers to work more effect­ively to improve biod­iversity. birdlife.

5.2 Man­age­ment Strategy

Fol­low­ing your ana­lys­is, provide a broad state­ment describ­ing your man­age­ment strategy. Con­sider all aspects (eco­nom­ics, access, biod­iversity, land­scape) and pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to your sil­vi­cul­tur­al strategy for meet­ing your man­age­ment objectives.

Cran­naich is classed as a PAWS site and is an upland nat­ive pine­wood which con­sists of entirely Scots Pine trees planted in 1962. The major­ity of the wood­land is of the same age and of a fairly uni­form age and struc­ture. Some nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion has occurred since plant­ing, how­ever there is no evid­ence of trees less than 15 years old. Since plant­ing the wood­land has received some thin­ning with trees now spaced from 0.5 – 3m apart. There is an under­story of ling heath­er, blae­berry, cow­berry and mosses.

Our long term vis­ion for Cran­naich is to restore the wood­land to a semi-nat­ur­al state and increase its eco­lo­gic­al value. We plan, over a 10 year peri­od to thin the exist­ing wood­land; plant nat­ive broadleaf trees; cre­ate a vari­ety of hab­it­ats with­in the wood­land; and sup­port oppor­tun­it­ies for nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion. As a res­ult we hope to enhance wood­land biod­iversity by sup­port­ing nat­ive flora and fauna and reduce the poten­tial risks of dis­ease to the wood­land and pro­tect against cli­mate change.

Thin­ning: Scots Pine plant­a­tions are at risk from dothis­troma septo­spor­um. To reduce the chance of devel­op­ing this dis­ease and to increase the health of the wood­land for the future, we will use the meth­od of Con­tinu­ous Cov­er Forestry to trans­form the even-aged plant­a­tion to cre­ate a struc­tur­ally, 10

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visu­ally and bio­lo­gic­ally diverse wood­land by thin­ning indi­vidu­al trees in areas where they are tightly spaced whilst main­tain­ing wood­land cov­er. This will increase air­flow, redu­cing humid­ity through the wood­land mak­ing it a less favour­able micro­cli­mate for harm­ful patho­gens, thereby redu­cing risk of dis­ease and improv­ing resi­li­ence against future cli­mate change. Please see p28 for map detail­ing thin­ning area.

Plant­ing of nat­ive broadleaf trees: The wood­land con­sists entirely of Scots Pine trees and there­fore lacks spe­cies diversity. By plant­ing nat­ive broadleaf trees we hope to sup­port a vari­ety of mam­mals, birds and inver­teb­rates by provid­ing shel­ter and a for­aging resource.

We plan to under­take suc­cess­ive plant­ing of approx­im­ately 800 trees over a peri­od of 10 years. We will plant a vari­ety of nat­ive broadleaf trees includ­ing birch, row­an and aspen. Mixed plant­ing will take place with­in rides, along some edges and in clear­ings and will be of var­ied stock­ing dens­ity. To pro­tect the sap­lings from deer brows­ing we will use tree tubes and stakes. When the sap­lings have out­grown the tree tubes we will cre­ate ​‘pens’ to pro­tect them from fur­ther browsing.

The wood­land is cur­rently with­in a Scots Pine seed exclu­sion zone so any new plant­ing of Scots Pine would either have to be grown from seed from the wood or pur­chased from a sup­pli­er with­in the seed exclu­sion zone 201.

The plant­ing of oth­er nat­ive spe­cies would also need to be sourced from the same zone (201).

Please see p29 for replant­ing map.

Cre­ate areas of var­ied habi­ti­at with­in the wood­land: The wood­land is an even-aged con­ifer plant­a­tion with a gen­er­ally closed can­opy and sub­sequent shaded under­story of heath­er, blae­berry and cow­berry. In order to increase the range of hab­it­ats with­in the wood­land we will devel­op areas of dead­wood with­in the wood­land. This rich­er envir­on­ment will be able sup­port a broad­er range of inver­teb­rates, birds and mam­mals in the future.

The wood­land has a lack of dead­wood. We plan to cre­ate a range of dead­wood fea­tures by ring bark­ing and winch­ing, leav­ing stand­ing and fallen dead­wood and cre­at­ing brash piles of fallen branches into a vari­ety of loc­a­tions and fea­tures both in sun­shine and shade. By cre­at­ing more diverse hab­it­ats we will increase the num­ber of inver­teb­rates, which will in turn provide food and nest­ing oppor­tun­it­ies for birds includ­ing the cres­ted tit and cross­bill. This will also sup­port the blae­berrry bumble bee which nests in tree roots and hum­mocks, the wood ant which cre­ates nests in open, sunny areas and the caper­caille which would bene­fit from both dense under­story areas for shel­ter and open areas for dry­ing chicks and as a food source by increas­ing blae­berry growth. 11

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba

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Pro­mote nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion to devel­op a range of tree ages: As the wood­land is of fairly uni­form age we would like to encour­age nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion to increase the age range and improve the woodland’s resi­li­ence to dis­ease and cli­mate change in the future.

Over the last 15 years there has been no nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion, which could be due to deer brows­ing and dense heath­er cov­er in open areas. We plan to man­age patches of over­grown heath­er by swip­ing to cre­ate space on the wood­land floor. We hope this will encour­age nat­ur­al regen­er­a­tion of Scots pine trees and increase areas of blue­berry, which is a vital food source for the capercaille.

1. Man­age­ment Pro­pos­als Tell us the man­age­ment oper­a­tions you intend to carry out over the next 10 years to help meet your man­age­ment object­ives for the wood­land. The sub­mis­sion of this plan will be con­sidered as an applic­a­tion for per­mis­sion to thin the wood­land over the 10 year plan peri­od, sub­ject to the com­ple­tion of Table 1 and the sub­mis­sion of appro­pri­ate maps. If you intend to carry out oth­er types of felling you must apply for per­mis­sion separately.

6.1 Sil­vi­cul­tur­al Prac­tice Out­line sil­vi­cul­tur­al prac­tice and man­age­ment pre­scrip­tions. Include any past man­age­ment prac­tice that is rel­ev­ant and the strategies to address the issues iden­ti­fied in sec­tion 5.

1. We will use the meth­od of Con­tinu­ous Cov­er Forestry to trans­form the uni­formly aged plant­a­tion and cre­ate struc­tur­ally, visu­ally and bio­lo­gic­ally diverse wood­land by sens­it­ively thin­ning indi­vidu­al trees in areas where they are tightly spaced whilst main­tain­ing wood­land cov­er. Any sig­ni­fic­ant forestry works will be under­taken out­with the caper­caille breed­ing sea­son (mid-March to early August).
2. Approx­im­ately 800 nat­ive broadleaf trees will be planted over a 10 year peri­od, with tree tubes and stakes used to pro­tect the sap­lings from deer brows­ing. Stock­ing dens­ity will be var­ied by the inclu­sion of thickets' and more widely spaced areas with trees up to 3 meters apart. After tree tubes have been exceeded fenced pens’ will be cre­ated to pro­tect the sap­lings from fur­ther browsing.
3. Increase dead­wood fea­tures by cre­at­ing new stand­ing dead­wood, pre­serving cur­rent stand­ing dead­wood, leav­ing fallen dead­wood and cre­at­ing brash piles of fallen branches in a vari­ety of loc­a­tions in both sun­shine and shade.
4. Pre­serve the ​‘Granny Pine’ by select­ive staggered thin­ning of pines sur­round­ing the tree.

6.1 Thin­ning Pre­scrip­tion If you are apply­ing for thin­ning, you must provide a map as per Appendix 2 of the Forest Plan Applicant’s Guid­ance. The map must show all areas pro­posed for 12

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thin­ning. Provide any fur­ther details required here in ref­er­ence to your map(s). Please see p28 for pro­posed thin­ning map. 13

Scot­tish Forestry Table 1 – Thin­ning This table shows the total man­age­ment plan area as well as the thin­ning com­part­ments pro­posed for man­age­ment. The felling site/​compartment in this table must be shown as the same on the thin­ning map(s). Please select meth­od of dis­play­ing thin­ning régime:

removed Pre/​Post stock­ing dens­ity Pre/​Post bas­al area Volume to be

Total Plan Area: 2.43 hectares

Thin­ning Area Spe­cies Com­part­ment (ha) % to be Age Mark­ing No of Volume Thin­ning Dens­ity felled (Years) of Trees (m³) (per ha) (one per Trees Pre Post Total row) Area A 2.43 100 Scots 40 – 60 Fellers 300 166 1400 1275 125 (Marked in Pine years select yel­low on map p28).

Total Area 2.43 100 Total Volume m³ 166 Total to be 125 removed:

Scot­tish Forestry Man­age­ment Plan Appendix 1: Feed­back from the Wood­land Trust

WOOD­LAND TRUST SCOT­LAND Report for Cicely Giles & Graeme Hill on a 2.4 ha (6 acre) sec­tion of Bad­den­gorm pine­woods Grid ref: NH 891 240 Site known as ​‘Maon Wood’

Pre­pared by Alan Craw­ford ​‘Out­reach Advisor’ for Wood­land Trust 1 15

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Con­tents p1-Cov­er page p2 — Con­tents; Intro­duc­tion; Wood­land Trust Out­reach remit p3 — Sum­mary Site Descrip­tion; Loc­a­tion map 1 p4 — AWI map 2; NWSS map 3 p5 — Cur­rent Pres­sures on the wood; Oppor­tun­it­ies and Con­straints; Man­age­ment recom­mend­a­tions p6-Pho­tos show­ing small clear­ing; and show­ing small amounts dead­wood p7-Photo show­ing example of an area that may bene­fit from thin­ning work p8-Sum­mary; Con­clu­sions; & List of appendices

Intro­duc­tion This sur­vey & report was car­ried out by Alan Craw­ford in 2018, out­reach advisor for the Wood­land Trust at the request of Cicely Giles & Graeme Hill.

The Wood­land Trust’s out­reach team offer advice to private landown­ers on wood­land cre­ation oppor­tun­it­ies and on man­age­ment of ancient and nat­ive woods of interest. This report focuses on exist­ing woodlands

Wood­land Trust out­reach work Wood­land Trust has a vis­ion for a UK rich in nat­ive woods and trees, bene­fit­ting both people and wild­life. To achieve this vis­ion, we sup­port wood­land and forest own­ers and man­agers. We give advice and sup­port to main­tain the value and increase the resi­li­ence of nat­ive wood­lands, pro­tect them from threats, and expand and con­nect them wherever possible.

All wood­land is spe­cial. The Wood­land Trust recog­nises that some wood­lands espe­cially ancient wood­lands, are par­tic­u­larly rich in biod­iversity while oth­ers con­trib­ute to the eco­nomy or to amen­ity value. Many wood­lands and forests are multi-use and we believe that by work­ing with the own­ers and tak­ing their object­ives into account, it is pos­sible to achieve sub­stan­tial long-term bene­fits for all.

We work on a diverse range of exist­ing wood­land sites, and par­tic­u­larly focus on sites where: There is a threat to ancient wood­land, such as con­ifer affor­est­a­tion (PAWS), invas­ive spe­cies, a lack of regen­er­a­tion or tree dis­ease. There is a poten­tial to increase the diversity and resi­li­ence of wood­land against threats like cli­mate change through pos­it­ive management.

[Appendix 1 shows a sum­mary dia­gram of the types of woods we would look at. Appendix 2 describes a list of resi­li­ence out­comes we would con­sider when assess­ing sites] 2 16

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Sum­mary site description

‘Maon Wood’ is a 2.4 ha sec­tion of Bad­den­gorm woods, close to Car­rbridge. Grid ref: NH 891 240. The site is one of 11 plots sold or up for sale through Wood​lands​.co​.uk. (See map 1 below).

It is PAWS, a Planted Ancient Wood­land Site, with the latest plant­ing of a stand of Scots Pine car­ried out in 1962. The can­opy is almost all pole and early mature scots pine, with slight vari­ation in growth rates, and slight vari­ation in stems per hec­tare dens­ity. A power­line and its asso­ci­ated wayleave form the north-east bound­ary of the site. The site is a flat, free drain­ing W18 nat­ive pine­wood, with heath­er, blue­berry and bulky upland mosses (inc. ancient wood­land indic­at­or ​‘Ptili­um Crista Castrensis’) all com­mon in the ground flora. There is some but not much dead­wood present.

This plot and the oth­er 10 plots (sold or up for sale) are part of a much lar­ger con­tigu­ous area of nat­ive pine­wood, much of it ancient. (See maps 2 & 3 below)

Map 1- Loc­a­tion maps for Moan Wood, Bad­den­gorm, nr Car­rbridge Bound­ar­ies: Bound­ar­ies are mar­ied by tur­quoise painted post tops. Maon Wood MOCICLANDE Maon Wood Location

Maon Wood

3 WOOD­LANDS 17

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Map 2- show­ing Ancient Wood­land Invent­ory Sites in Bad­den­gorm area, north & west of Carrbridge

Jasm L vet imant y

Map 3‑showing area of nat­ive wood­land as assessed by the Nat­ive Wood­land Sur­vey of Scot­land (nwss) in Bad­den­gorm area, north & west of Carrbridge

コ 24 RFF vete luant 4 18

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Cur­rent pres­sures on the wood The most sig­ni­fic­ant pres­sure on the wood is the level of herb­ivoure impacts which are mod­er­ate- high. One con­sequence of this is a lack of young­er trees & shrubs in the under­storey. There are some broadleaves that look to have been planted in adja­cent plots, and pro­tec­ted by tubes or wire mesh. In most cases these trees have been browsed if access­ible to deer.

There are no obvi­ous signs of sig­ni­fic­ant impact from pests and dis­eases, invas­ive spe­cies, or non- nat­ive trees, but it would of course be worth­while to remain aware of the poten­tial of such pres­sures. And over time cli­mate change may also affect the resi­li­ence of the wood.

Oppor­tun­it­ies & Con­straints In terms of poten­tial wood­land man­age­ment oper­a­tions, the site is access­ible — it is flat, near to a main road, and there are good qual­ity tracks nearby. Should thin­ning work be under­taken there is also good access to mar­kets, as well as the oppor­tun­ity to util­ise some tim­ber on site.

There are also oppor­tun­it­ies to increase spe­cies and struc­tur­al diversity and to make some biod­iversity gains, though it is import­ant to under­stand that improv­ing biod­iversity in an area does not mean that all poten­tial spe­cies should be present in all sites. In this regard, and in some oth­er regards, the oppor­tun­it­ies for improv­ing the biod­iversity of the site, and for util­ising tim­ber and oth­er products from the site would be sig­ni­fic­antly improved if a man­age­ment agree­ment could be agreed between the own­ers of this site and the oth­er 10 sites that have either been sold or are up for sale in the same vicin­ity. Related to the above, the largest con­straint in terms of the range of operations/​interventions that would be pos­sible would be the rel­at­ively small size of the site.

Man­age­ment recom­mend­a­tions As with many sites there are options in terms of man­age­ment going for­ward, with each hav­ing things to com­mend them, but also poten­tial risks asso­ci­ated with them.

Option 1- No intervention

Option 2- Carry out thin­ning work, par­tic­u­larly focus­ing in the areas with high­er num­bers of stems per hec­tare, and where the crowns of neigh­bour­ing trees are com­pet­ing for light. This would allow more light onto the wood­land floor, and cre­ate more oppor­tun­it­ies for any young broadleaves to become estab­lished. It would also allow the remain­ing pines to put on great­er incre­ment­al growth.

Option 3- Cre­ation of a small clearing/​extension of exist­ing small clear­ing on edge of prop­erty. Clear­ing could then be left as open land hab­it­at, or planted with nat­ive broadleaves.

Option 4- Pro­tect any regen­er­at­ing trees as and when they appear.

Option 5‑Enrichment plant­ing on minor spe­cies unlikely to nat­ur­ally regen­er­ate here eg. Aspen. And if aspen was planted it should be planted where it has suf­fi­cient light levels to thrive.

Option 6‑Retain what dead­wood there is on site, and con­sider dead­wood cre­ation, either by ​‘felling an occa­sion­al tree to recycle’ (say in areas where thin­ning was appro­pri­ate), or by ring bark­ing to cre­ate stand­ing dead­wood. 5 19

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Photo show­ing a small clear­ing on the edge of the prop­erty, which could be made lar­ger and left as open ground hab­it­at, or could be planted with nat­ive broadleaves.

Photo show­ing a small amount of dead­wood on site. Dead­wood cre­ation else­where on site is a pos­sib­il­ity 6 20

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Photo show­ing a situ­ation where thin­ning may be appro­pri­ate, as crowns of adja­cent scots pines are begin­ning to com­pete with each oth­er for light 7 21

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Sum­mary & Con­clu­sions Redu­cing the impact from herb­ivoures on site is going to be dif­fi­cult, giv­en that con­trolling deer num­bers is unlikely to be some­thing the own­ers can con­trol them­selves, and giv­en that as the wood­land is to be used as a retreat/​recreational space, deer fen­cing seems inap­pro­pri­ate. Although not ideal, pro­tec­tion of any regen­er­at­ing trees or of any enrich­ment plant­ing could be done with stakes & tubes, or by use of very small scale post & rail fences, or small wire mesh exclosures.

Man­age­ment options and the value of any man­age­ment inter­ven­tions would be greatly enhanced if there were the pos­sib­il­ity of col­lab­or­at­ing with some or all of the oth­er plot own­ers in the area, and before any firm decisions were made about this plot, I feel that it would be worth­while spend­ing some time to explore wheth­er this might be feasible.

If that proves not to be feas­ible and man­age­ment decisions were to be made for this plot at Moan Wood in isol­a­tion from the oth­er plots, then my thoughts would be to take some time to get to know the site over the next num­ber of months, see­ing it through each of the sea­sons, before final­ising a man­age­ment plan. That would allow time to under­stand where dif­fer­ent fea­tures are with­in the plot, and may help determ­ine where dif­fer­ent inter­ven­tions should take place.

The man­age­ment options on p5 are not mutu­ally exclus­ive. Light thin­ning; dead­wood cre­ation; and pro­tec­tion of regen­er­at­ing young trees from brows­ing would be the inter­ven­tions most likely to enhance the con­di­tion of the wood. Enrich­ment plant­ing of nat­ive broadleaves is also worth con­sid­er­ing assum­ing they could be pro­tec­ted from brows­ing, and light levels are appro­pri­ate to allow them to become established.

Appen­dices 1- Ancient & nat­ive woods of interest (includ­ing dia­gram show­ing sites we would look at) 2- Resi­li­ence out­comes that are import­ant to con­sider when under­tak­ing sur­vey work. 3- Gloss­ary of terms 8 22

Scot­tish Forestry Coill­tear­achd na h‑Alba Man­age­ment Plan

Appendix 2: Feed­back from RSPB Hi Cicely and Graeme Great to meet you today. Below I have provided a sum­mary of what we talked about.

Caper­cail­lie bio­logy ∞ Their breed­ing sea­son is between March and August but the most sens­it­ive time for dis­turb­ance is March-May as this is when they are lekking ∞ They are abor­al (live in the trees) in winter and prefer scots pine needles ∞ They rely on blae­berry in the spring/​summer as adults eat the plant/​berries and this plant hosts inver­teb­rates which is import­ant for chicks in their first month ∞ Oth­er food sources in these months include larch trees, bog sedges (espe­cially cot­ton grass) and cowberry

Poten­tial hab­it­at recom­mend­a­tions ∞ Avoid dis­turb­ing forestry work at least dur­ing the lek sea­son. Also avoid enter­ing the lek area dur­ing this time (area north of wayleave) ∞ Thin forest to cre­ate a vari­able dens­ity struc­ture e.g. some small open glades with dens­er areas for cov­er. Pri­or­ity is to ensure that blae­berry is grow­ing in good num­bers ∞ Leave older trees with long side branches and some stand­ing dead trees ∞ If regen­er­at­ing trees are loc­ated at a young age, con­sider cre­at­ing a pro­tect­ive bar­ri­er from graz­ing ∞ Swipe heath­er in areas where it is becom­ing over­grown. Start this at a small scale. This will pro­mote blae­berry and cre­ate bare ground for chicks to dry off ∞ If trees are planted then stick to nat­ive spe­cies in small num­bers e.g. birch ∞ If a path is cre­ated ensure it is as dis­crete as pos­sible (e.g doesn’t link to exist­ing forestry tracks) to pre­vent mem­bers of the pub­lic using it.

Con­tacts Angus Dix­on (forestry man­ager) grovesforestry@​gmail.​com Also worth con­tact­ing Aber­nethy reserve but bear in mind they are cur­rently going through a lot of staff changes so may be a while before they respond.

Inform­a­tion I have attached the man­age­ment book­let Ellie showed you.

Fund­ing Most forestry fund­ing comes under SRDP Forestry grant schemes https://​www​.rur​alpay​ments​.org/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​i​t​e​/​f​u​t​u​r​e​s​/​t​o​p​i​c​s​/​a​l​l​-​s​c​h​e​m​e​s​/​f​o​r​e​s​t​r​y​-​g​r​a​n​t​-​s​c​heme/. If you choose ​‘Wood­land Improve­ment’ then ​‘Hab­it­ats and Spe­cies’ there is a range of options that could be fun­ded includ­ing heath­er swiping.

Any addi­tion­al ques­tions please don’t hes­it­ate to ask.

Best wishes, Molly

Molly Doubleday Caper­cail­lie Advis­ory Officer North Scot­land Region­al Office RSPB North Scot­land Region­al Office, Etive House, Beech­wood Park, Inverness, IV23BW Tel 01463228816 Mobile 07720599424 23

Scot­tish Forestry

Appendix 3: Man­age­ment Plan

Notes from phone call with Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton CNPA 12/11/18

We dis­cussed our wood­land and how we could man­age it and Dav­id advised us: To look at the Cairngorm Nation­al Park Author­ity Forest Strategy which is a doc­u­ment provid­ing stra­tegic dir­ec­tion on future forest man­age­ment and the res­tor­a­tion of wood­lands in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park over the next two dec­ades (from Septem­ber 2018). To read an art­icle that he had writ­ten ​‘Con­ser­va­tion of Moun­tain Wood­land in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’ (August 2018). That there is a new pro­ject loc­ally: Cairngorms Caper­caille Pro­ject. The Car­rbridge Ranger is Emma Rawl­ing. About wood­land man­age­ment; crown levels and light intens­ity. That if we wanted to intro­duce dif­fer­ent spe­cies that aspen, row­an, wil­low are fast grow­ers but pal­at­able for deer where­as scots pine is slower grow­ing and less palatable.

Email feed­back from CNPA 12/11/18 Hi Cicely, Hi Graeme