Programme Board meeting notes - Capercaillie Emergency Plan 100125

Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan Pro­gramme Board meeting

Fri­day 10 Janu­ary | Park Author­ity office, Grantown-on-Spey

Attendees

• Andy Ford: Dir­ect­or of Nature and Cli­mate Change, Park Author­ity (Chair)
• Car­o­lyn Robertson: Cairngorms Nature Man­ager, Park Authority
• Chris Don­ald: Head of Oper­a­tions Cent­ral High­lands, NatureScot
• John Risby: High­land and Islands Con­ser­vat­or, Scot­tish Forestry
• Alex Macleod: North Region Man­ager, Forestry and Land Scotland

1. Aims and respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Pro­gramme Board It was agreed that the Pro­gramme Board is respons­ible for: a) Enabling and assess­ing the deliv­ery of the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan b) Man­aging asso­ci­ated risks and issues c) Work­ing with the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group to review the plan’s impact based on evid­ence d) Pri­or­it­ising activ­it­ies out­lined in the plan when neces­sary, e.g., based on evid­ence and oppor­tun­it­ies for quick wins e) Align­ing pub­lic fund­ing and policy to sup­port deliv­ery f) Provid­ing stra­tegic over­sight and ensur­ing a coordin­ated approach to com­mu­nic­a­tions about the plan g) Ensur­ing the plan main­tains a nation­al focus, with policy, guid­ance, and learn­ing applied con­sist­ently across all caper­cail­lie areas, with­in and bey­ond the Nation­al Park h) Advocacy and report­ing to the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, Park Author­ity, and NatureScot Boards

2. Gov­ernance and man­age­ment A Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group, chaired by NatureScot, are respons­ible for devel­op­ing and deliv­er­ing a research and mon­it­or­ing plan to meas­ure the impact of the activ­it­ies out­lined in the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan and to inform adapt­ive man­age­ment, and sup­port the spe­cif­ic research actions with­in the plan.

The pro­posed mem­ber­ship of the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group was dis­cussed. It was agreed that indi­vidu­als with appro­pri­ate know­ledge and expert­ise could also be co-opted to the group as required at the dis­cre­tion of the Chair and members.

Pro­posed mem­ber­ship of the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group

Organ­isa­tion	Rep­res­ent­at­ive
NatureScot	TBC
Forestry & Land Scotland	TBC
GWCT	TBC
Forest Research	Head of Land Use & Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices Research Group
RSPB	Seni­or Con­ser­va­tion Scientist
RZSS	Head of Conservation
Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen	Pro­fess­or of Ecology
Uni­ver­sity of St Andrews	Read­er in Stat­ist­ic­al Ecology
Uni­ver­sity of Glasgow	Lead for the Caper­cail­lie Integ­rated Pop­u­la­tion Model

There are 6 areas of work with­in the Emer­gency Plan with stake­hold­ers con­nec­ted to each area as out­lined over­leaf. It was agreed that it will be the respons­ib­il­ity of a Pro­ject Man­ager (respons­ible for man­aging deliv­ery of the Emer­gency Plan) to man­age the stake­hold­er groups to ensure coordin­ated deliv­ery of actions.

Stake­hold­er groups based on the 6 areas of work in the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan

Expand­ing and improv­ing habitat

• Wood­land expan­sion (p15)
• Wood­land restruc­tur­ing (p16)
• Wood­land graz­ing (p18)
• Rob­ocut­ting (p20)
• Forest bog res­tor­a­tion (p22)

Stake­hold­ers:

• Scot­tish Forestry
• CON­FOR
• Land man­agers in tar­get areas
• Peat­land ACTION Teams

Redu­cing the impacts of predation

• Diver­sion­ary feed­ing (p26)
• Mon­it­or­ing vole pop­u­la­tions (p29)
• Leth­al con­trol of foxes and crows (p30)
• Mon­it­or­ing pine marten pop­u­la­tions (p32)

Stake­hold­ers:

• NatureScot
• GWCT
• Land man­agers deliv­er­ing pred­at­or man­age­ment strategies and or in areas with suit­able hen records
• Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen
• Uni­ver­sity of St. Andrews

Remov­ing and mark­ing fences

• Remov­ing and mark­ing fences (p35)

Stake­hold­ers:

• Scot­tish Forestry
• Land man­agers in core caper­cail­lie areas
• RSPB

Redu­cing disturbance

• Redu­cing dis­turb­ance (p39)

Stake­hold­ers:

• Park Author­ity
• Land man­agers in tar­geted areas
• Scot­tish Ori­enteer­ing Association
• Badenoch and Strath­spey Trail Association
• Aber­deen­shire Trail Association
• Devel­op­ing Moun­tain Bik­ing in Scotland
• BirdGuides
• Rare Bird Alert
• Scot­tish Orni­tho­lo­gists’ Club
• Lek It Be Champions
• Police Scot­land

Caper­cail­lie monitoring

• Mon­it­or­ing pro­ductiv­ity (p43)
• Mon­it­or­ing leks (46)
• Mon­it­or­ing mor­bid­ity and mor­tal­ity (p48)

Stake­hold­ers:

• NatureScot
• GWCT
• Car­rbridge Caper­cail­lie Group
• Rothiemurchus Estate
• Seafield and Strath­spey Estates
• RSPB
• RZSS
• Uni­ver­sity of Aberdeen
• Uni­ver­sity of St Andrews

Rein­force­ment feasibility

• Rein­force­ment feas­ib­il­ity (p51)

Stake­hold­ers:

• Park Author­ity
• Land man­agers in areas rel­ev­ant to the feas­ib­il­ity study
• NatureScot
• RZSS

1. Report­ing pro­gress, risks and issues Report­ing inform­a­tion will be shared pub­licly and presen­ted for annu­al review to the Park Author­ity Board Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. A sug­ges­ted format for a Pro­gress Report, includ­ing a Risks and Issues log was dis­cussed. It was agreed that the format should mir­ror that used to report to the Park Author­ity Board Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee. As well as report­ing on the 6 areas of work in the Emer­gency Plan, report­ing on pro­gress and activ­it­ies of the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group should also be included. It was agreed that the Pro­ject Man­ager respons­ible for man­aging deliv­ery of the Emer­gency Plan will also be respons­ible for reporting.

Actions

1. Car­o­lyn to set the next meet­ing date in April
2. Chris to con­firm who will chair the Sci­entif­ic Advis­ory Group
3. Car­o­lyn to draft an update to share with all stake­hold­ers to keep them informed of pro­gress to date deliv­er­ing the Emer­gency Plan
4. Car­o­lyn to draft a role descrip­tion for the Caper­cail­lie Emer­gency Plan Pro­ject Manager