Minutes

Cairngorms Upland Advis­ory Group Meet­ing 15^th March 2019 CNPA office — Grant­own-on-Spey Attendees: Judith Webb (CNPA Board) — Chair Will Boyd-Wal­lis (CNPA) Pete May­hew (CNPA) Mike Cot­tam (CNPA) Anne Rae Mac­Don­ald (Nonikiln Farm) Colin Shed­den (BASC) John Risby (FCS) Alex Jen­kins (Edinglassie Estate) Katy Dick­son (SLE) Chris Don­ald (SNH) Adam Smith (GWCT – from 1130) Dav­id Heth­er­ing­ton (CNPA) John Gri­er­son (Ass. of Cairngorms Com­munit­ies) Deirdre Fal­con­er (AoCC) Dav­id Windle (NEMT) Thomas Mac­Don­nell (Cairngorms Con­nect) Claire Smith (RSPB) Dav­id Frew (NTS) Alis­on Hester (research rep., JHI) Sandy Dav­id­son (stu­dent rep., UHI) Jacki Mun­ro (CNPA – Minutes)

Apo­lo­gies: Richard Cooke (ADMG), Richard Gled­son (Bal­mor­al Estate), Andrew Heald (Con­for)

1. Wel­come & Intro­duc­tions JW intro­duced her­self as appoin­ted Chair­per­son. Intro­duc­tions were made. JW stated this was a new group and, although rel­at­ively small giv­en the breadth of what will be covered by the group, it should provide a broad and diverse range of views across the vari­ous sec­tors and organisations.

2. Role of CUAG JW explained the aim of the group is to talk about land man­age­ment with­in the Park, the major­ity of which is upland: bring­ing views from vari­ous sec­tors; dis­cuss how we may con­struct­ively take things for­ward; act as a com­mu­nic­a­tion route to make con­tri­bu­tions and take actions away. JW emphas­ised the import­ance of devel­op­ing a sense of cohe­sion with­in the group and that listen­ing is as import­ant as speaking.

PM gave an over­view of the cur­rent 5‑year Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP), explain­ing how CDAG had been the frame­work for deer man­age­ment across the Park, but an upland advis­ory for­um was needed to bring vari­ous land-use sec­tors togeth­er. He referred to the CUAG Terms of Ref­er­ence and hoped CUAG would advise the CNPA, share good prac­tice examples and stay in touch with cur­rent research. The work of the group should be a two way pro­cess – advice from the group to CNPA but also dis­cus­sions should be shared out­with the group with inter­ested parties.

AH felt CUAG could provide bet­ter under­stand­ing of the biggest research needs.

WBW said, as a new group it is open to devel­op and dis­cuss what it thinks are the most press­ing and import­ant upland issues in the Nation­al Park.

In answer to a ques­tion about how this group linked to Cairngorms Nature, JW stated she also sits on the Cairngorm Nature Strategy Group and from a Board per­spect­ive, know­ing these groups are feed­ing in gives reas­sur­ance the NPPP is being con­sidered and delivered, and helps with the link­age and read across between the two groups.

CD felt it was import­ant the Chair was a CNPA Board mem­ber for CUAG to main­tain focus. The group agreed that a CNPA Board mem­ber should be chair. JW to seek Board approv­al to change the ToR to reflect this (Action‑1).

1. Mak­ing Best Use of the Group WBW and PM felt it was very import­ant to get the agenda right and it should be guided by the group what they want to achieve and set house rules.

MC high­lighted the key role CNPA can play in provid­ing a link between com­munit­ies and gov­ern­ment and that CUAG can help this.

TM stated CUAG should be focussed, not leave big issues till it was too late or skirt around import­ant dis­cus­sions, it is likely there would not always be agree­ment and sug­ges­ted dif­fer­ence of opin­ions could be voted on. He added he wanted to ensure everything be minuted to enable any­one to read the minutes and know what was discussed.

KD agreed it is very import­ant the minutes reflect the meet­ing but it should be recog­nised some­times a dis­cus­sion is required before being minuted, adding she was keen to ensure this group works towards solu­tions not just talk about the problems.

AJ said the Park is a vast area hav­ing many dif­fer­ent land uses all with indi­vidu­al mer­its, and rur­al employ­ment should be con­sidered as well as the import­ance of high­light­ing best practice.

DFa stated res­id­ents in the Park see inform­a­tion but don’t know how decisions are arrived at and sug­ges­ted cre­at­ing a simple break­down explain­ing how decisions were made for feed­ing back to the gen­er­al public.

TM said it is polit­ic­ally cor­rect to listen to what the pub­lic want but are they always cor­rect? He felt dif­fer­ent sec­tors do under­stand each oth­er, just don’t always agree, and asked how to integ­rate that.

SD stated loc­al com­munity groups are import­ant but the group should talk about wider nation­al views.

CSm enquired if CUAG, con­sid­er­ing its mem­bers, was to be an evid­ence based group, sug­gest­ing site vis­its can be very inform­at­ive if done well.

PM agreed debates should be based on good and up-to-date inform­a­tion, but that’s not always avail­able and people don’t always make decisions based on evid­ence, but on emo­tion or cul­tur­al back­ground. So evid­ence will not neces­sar­ily be the end decision maker and broad­er think­ing may be required.

PM stated CNPA will look to this group for thoughts to help devel­op and deliv­er rel­ev­ant policies and that CUAG will be cru­cial for the next NPPP.

CD added it is key to remem­ber CUAG is an advis­ory group and not to mir­ror the CNPA Board’s role.

DFr felt the group could be used for more and it would be good to have an out­put to take to oth­er organ­isa­tions and provide an evid­ence base that goes bey­ond the Nation­al Park.

In sum­mary: • Aim for solu­tions and out­comes, observing Chath­am House Rules when required • Short, sharp and reflect­ive minutes on what’s dis­cussed that can be shared with oth­ers • Reflect land own­er interest and wider pub­lic views, increas­ing aware­ness and under­stand­ing • Site vis­its to be con­sidered when it is felt neces­sary and resources allow • Help inform future policies and deliv­er exist­ing ones • Mem­bers help to dir­ect what should be dis­cussed — both new and exist­ing questions.

1. Key upland issues in the CNP PM asked what the big land use ques­tions are that CUAG should be address­ing. How can we cel­eb­rate rap­tors, how can we improve moor­land prac­tice with­in the Park, con­sider ques­tions about farm­ing that aren’t cap­tured in the NPPP? E.g. should policies be con­sidered on tracks and ATV use?

ARM high­lighted the poten­tial threat to farm­ing from the anti­cip­ated sub­sidy changes and sug­ges­ted bring­ing in expert speak­ers on spe­cif­ic top­ics such as this to future meetings.

TM sug­ges­ted invit­ing ten­ant farm­ers to a dis­cus­sion as farm­ing plays an import­ant role with­in the Park and sub­sidy régime changes will have implic­a­tions for this. He’d like to see sub­sidies change to help farm­ers sup­port dif­fer­ent activ­it­ies, not just farm­ing, in order to com­bat rur­al depopulation.

AJ sug­ges­ted moun­tain hares as a future top­ic for dis­cus­sion and emphas­ised the import­ance of farm­ing work with moor­land management.

CSm felt try­ing to engage farm­ing com­munit­ies can prove dif­fi­cult if talk­ing about waders, deer etc.

JW sug­ges­ted this might be some­thing CUAG could look at.

PM sug­ges­ted an agenda item might be ​‘where small scale farm­ing is going with­in the Park’ as opposed to simply ​‘farm­ing’, reit­er­at­ing the import­ance of defin­ing the agenda well.

SD felt cli­mate change is a huge top­ic and reminded the group it was Youth Cli­mate Strike day.

JW emphas­ised that group size had been lim­ited so as to be able to man­age dis­cus­sions, but agreed speak­ers should be invited along to help inform the group when neces­sary. She added any issues picked up by the group need to be man­age­able and it was import­ant to ensure focus on con­ser­va­tion, while still sit­ting well with­in oth­er groups relat­ing to Vis­it­or Exper­i­ence and Rur­al Devel­op­ment and that CUAG dis­cus­sions on issues should focus on causes, con­sequences and solutions.

JW invited mem­bers to think SMARTly about agenda items and agreed any back­ground papers would be cir­cu­lated pri­or to meet­ings and that, where appro­pri­ate, mem­bers from CUAG would be tasked with draft­ing papers to present on par­tic­u­lar topics.

The Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan can be viewed online.

1. Pilot Research into Impacts of Dif­fer­ent Land Use Object­ives MC explained that CNPA have good envir­on­ment­al data from with­in the Park which is being mapped but we do not have data on social or eco­nom­ic impacts of dif­fer­ing land uses across the Nation­al park. As a res­ult CNPA are fund­ing a scop­ing study with the New Eco­nom­ics Found­a­tion (NEF) that will pilot research at an estate level and, if it provides use­ful data, will then look at scal­ing the pro­ject up. It is hoped to have tested these data by mid-April to see if this mod­el will allow CNPA to upscale.

DFa sug­ges­ted it would be inter­est­ing to see a map of who owns what and get a com­par­is­on between all the dif­fer­ent land own­ers’ objectives.

WBW added CNPA were wary of cat­egor­ising land own­ers as they all have many dif­fer­ent focuses, there­fore the approach being taken with this pro­ject is to focus on dif­fer­ent land uses rather than dif­fer­ent landowners.

1. CNPA Update Forest Strategy and Cairngorms Nature Action Plan WBW stated both doc­u­ments closely relate to CUAG and cop­ies were made avail­able to all (also avail­able on the CNPA website).

East Cairngorms Moor­land Part­ner­ship (ECMP) This is a key part­ner­ship pro­ject in the Park. CNPA are lead with six Estates; Inver­cauld, Mar Lodge, Bal­mor­al (incl. Del­nadamph), Glen Avon, Glen­liv­et and Mar, aim­ing to bring estates togeth­er to work col­lect­ively to under­stand what sus­tain­able grouse shoot­ing looks like in practice.

Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Land­scape Part­ner­ship (TGLP) Through an HLF grant of £3.6million 20 dif­fer­ent pro­jects are being funded.

Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion Fun­ded by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, Steph­en Corcor­an and Emma Stew­art are work­ing on a large num­ber of Estates across the Park to restore 1,000 ha/​year which will have great benefits.

Cairngorms Con­nect — http://​cairngorm​scon​nect​.org​.uk/ ​“The biggest eco­lo­gic­al res­tor­a­tion pro­ject in the UK”.

Mis­cel­laneous JW stated mem­bers should feel able to inform the group on pro­jects around the Park that are out­with the NPPP and not CNPA-led. It was sug­ges­ted a paper with back­ground inform­a­tion and links be cir­cu­lated pri­or to meet­ings for mem­bers to view at their leis­ure and if dis­cus­sion was required it could be added to the Agenda.

1. Wider Engage­ment WBW asked wheth­er oth­ers should be invited to join, bear­ing in mind the group was poten­tially already at capa­city. He added that lar­ger events such as pub­lic debates could be organ­ised sep­ar­ately if appropriate.

SD sug­ges­ted a CNPA staff mem­ber attend UHI’s annu­al Integ­rated Land Use Con­fer­ence to talk about the Park, adding stu­dents can be good at com­ing up with fresh ideas.

JW sug­ges­ted fur­ther thoughts could be put for­ward at a later date as mem­bers had a chance to con­sider more.

1. Date and Agenda for next meet­ing A Doodle poll to be cir­cu­lated to find a date in late September.

A request was made for meet­ings to be held towards begin­ning of a week.

JW thanked every­one and stated should any­one be unable to attend, she would be happy to speak on their behalf based on back­ground papers.

1. AOB JG cla­ri­fied that AoCC was more far-reach­ing than Com­munity Councils.