Minutes

Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group

Monday 4^th May

Vir­tu­al Meeting

Attendees

Alis­on Hester (research)	Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald (CNPA Board)
Chris Don­ald (SNH)	Claire Smith (RSPB)
Dave Windle (NEMT)	Dav­id Frew (NTS)
Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton (CNPA, minutes)	John Gri­er­son (AoCC)
John Risby (SF)	Judith Webb (Chair)
Mike Cot­tam (CNPA)	Pete May­hew (CNPA)
Richard Cooke (ADMG)	Richard Gled­son (ECMP)
Will Boyd-Wal­lis (CNPA)

Apo­lo­gies: Adam Smith, Alex Jen­kins, Colin Shed­den, Lynn Cas­sells, Sandy Dav­id­son, Steph­en Young, Thomas Mac­Don­ell and Will Anderson

1. JW wel­comed every­one to the meeting

2. PM gave an over­view of the two main COV­ID-19 recov­ery plans being worked on by CNPA which were rel­ev­ant to CUAG — the Green Recov­ery Plan and the Vis­it­or Lock­down Eas­ing Plan.

Green Recov­ery Plan – in line with the 4 Scot­Gov actions – Respond, Reset, Restart and Recov­ery. This will look at busi­nesses and com­munit­ies; con­ser­va­tion & land man­age­ment; access, and a cap­it­al invest­ment programme.

Scen­ario Plan­ning for Vis­it­or Man­age­ment – pre­par­ing for a poten­tial large num­ber of people com­ing to nation­al parks post-Lock­down. Work needs to focus on where the key pinch-points are likely to be; what do we need e.g. car park man­age­ment, ranger ser­vices; and com­mu­nic­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar the need to be pos­it­ive, con­sist­ent and concise.

1. WBW men­tioned a few areas of con­cern that the CNPA were already aware of (e.g. from oth­er CUAG mem­bers by email), such as deer man­age­ment, field sur­veys, gamebird shoot­ing, and muir­burn, and then opened it up to the group.

• Deer

MC explained that some estates were still man­aging deer to pro­tect trees etc. and were doing so in com­mu­nic­a­tion with loc­al police, but that this did not appear to be con­sist­ent between dif­fer­ent police divisions.

DF said NTS were des­per­ate to get stalk­ers out to con­trol deer to pro­tect tree regen­er­a­tion but they were not stalk­ing because they’d been fol­low­ing SNH advice.

RC explained that the ven­ison mar­ket was closed because of the need for social dis­tan­cing in pro­cessing and pack­aging areas, while loc­al sales were of an insuf­fi­cient scale. He urged that Scot­Gov should provide guid­ance on how the ven­ison mar­ket could be allowed to recover.

He also felt there would be little com­mer­cial stalk­ing this year, partly because of dif­fi­culties of for­eign travel and the need for social dis­tan­cing in accommodation.

CD said that, if any­thing, Scot­Gov had recently made meas­ures more strin­gent but that there was anoth­er meet­ing with Scot­Gov in 2 days, where the sub­ject would be fur­ther explored.

When asked about Scot­tish Forestry’s take on deer man­age­ment affect­ing regen, JR said that SF would not be tak­ing a hard line on tree dam­age in grant schemes, so if dam­age occurs SF will not be seek­ing to recov­er grants. Sim­il­arly if people are unable to under­take herb­i­vore impact assess­ments (HIA) in the nor­mal way then they should do what they can and let SF know.

PM asked about the accept­ab­il­ity of leav­ing deer car­cases on the hill, in light of deer need­ing to be culled, but the com­mer­cial ven­ison mar­ket being sus­pen­ded. RC felt many estates would be cul­tur­ally opposed to this and would there­fore not prac­tise it.

DF and CS said that their organ­isa­tions at Mar Lodge and Aber­nethy cur­rently only wished to cull a small amount of deer at crit­ic­al loc­a­tions, mainly to counter observed increase in fearlessness.

• Fish­er­ies

ARM raised the mat­ter of fish­er­ies as had WA by email, with con­cerns of reduced income for estates and fish­ery boards also receiv­ing reduced income from levies.

• Field­work

JR felt it was too early to say what effect COV­ID-19 would have on reach­ing wood­land cre­ation tar­gets, but miss­ing sea­son­al sur­veys e.g. nest­ing birds, would be a sig­ni­fic­ant issue.

CS said that sev­er­al eco­lo­gic­al sur­vey­ors were still work­ing. CIEEM advice allowed people to do field­work if social dis­tan­cing was fol­lowed. How­ever, this is based on DEFRA advice and should not there­fore apply to Scotland.

RC said it was dif­fi­cult for estates to per­form envir­on­ment­al audits, and there­fore to receive grant pay­ments. Peat­land Action-fun­ded pro­jects will lag behind, and CD con­firmed that Peat­land Action work had been deemed by Scot­Gov to be non-essential.

ARM also sug­ges­ted that grants depend­ent on moor­land man­age­ment plans requir­ing muir­burn may also be affected by the cur­tailed burn­ing season.

• Farm­ing

ARM said that farm­ers are con­cerned about the com­bined effects of Brexit-related mar­ket uncer­tainty with COV­ID-19 restrictions.

DW said the NEMT was con­cerned about reports that some farm­ers were using the Lock­down as a reas­on to keep the pub­lic off their land.

• Vis­it­or return

There was dis­cus­sion about the effects of a poten­tial surge in vis­it­or num­bers in the nation­al park when Lock­down is lif­ted, espe­cially if there are still restric­tions on for­eign travel. DF said this was a big issue for NTS as more rangers would be needed at a time when NTS does not have the money to pay for them. They would be employ­ing no sea­son­al rangers this year because of reduced income.

JW said that we all need to think not just about the cur­rent impacts, but also the longer term implic­a­tions of the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic on oper­a­tions and activ­it­ies across the nation­al park. She urged every­one to come back with any fur­ther com­ments or sug­ges­tions by email to DH.

Sum­mary of key points

• There is a need for clear and con­sist­ent mes­saging about COV­ID-19 impacts on land management.
• The land man­age­ment sec­tor in the Park is import­ant, both eco­nom­ic­ally and in terms of deliv­er­ing pub­lic bene­fits. It is facing sev­er­al chal­lenges which need to be appre­ci­ated and under­stood, and com­mu­nic­ated to Scot­tish Government.
• Estates are inter­pret­ing restric­tions on deer man­age­ment dif­fer­ently – some are under­tak­ing stalk­ing with social dis­tan­cing meas­ures, while oth­ers have ceased com­pletely, cre­at­ing man­age­ment dif­fi­culties, par­tic­u­larly for tree regeneration.
• Gov­ern­ment guid­ance is required on how the ven­ison mar­ket can be allowed to recov­er quickly
• Scot­tish Forestry sees increased brows­ing impacts on trees dur­ing Lock­down as a short-term issue and will not be seek­ing to recov­er grants. Estates should let them know about dif­fi­culties under­tak­ing HIAs
• Miss­ing sea­son­al sur­veys, e.g. breed­ing birds, could delay wood­land cre­ation schemes by a year. Restric­tions on eco­lo­gic­al field­work are more strin­gent in Scot­land, than in England.
• Peat­land res­tor­a­tion pro­jects may also be sig­ni­fic­antly delayed.
• Land man­agers need to plan for the end of Lock­down as there may be a surge in vis­it­or num­bers which will need care­ful man­age­ment at a time when there may well be reduced resources.