Peatland Standard Response 260826

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity 14 The Square Grant­own on Spey PH26 3HG

T: 01479 873 535

26 August 2026

Dear NatureScot,

Many thanks for the oppor­tun­ity to com­ment on Scotland’s Peat­land Stand­ard. Peat­land res­tor­a­tion is a key part of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan as it deliv­ers mul­tiple bene­fits for com­munit­ies and nature. As one of five deliv­ery part­ners for the Scot­tish Government’s Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme the Park Author­ity has ambi­tious aims for, and is com­mit­ted to, peat­land res­tor­a­tion deliv­ery in the Nation­al Park. The Park Author­ity is very sup­port­ive of the Peat­land Stand­ard and the inform­a­tion it holds in one place.

We wel­come the guid­ance and sup­port the doc­u­ment brings in provid­ing a shared, con­sist­ent frame­work for the sec­tor, cla­ri­fy­ing legis­la­tion and essen­tial good prac­tices without adding new stat­utory require­ments. We recog­nise the vital con­tri­bu­tion the Stand­ard makes as a nat­ur­al part­ner along­side pub­lic­a­tions such as the UK Forestry Stand­ard and plan­ning con­sents. The Peat­land Stand­ard will be very help­ful in sup­port­ing staff, con­tract­ors and land man­agers nav­ig­at­ing through some­times com­plex decision requir­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of dif­fer­ent policies and guid­ance. Bring­ing everything into one place will be very bene­fi­cial and the Park Author­ity recom­mends this is care­fully con­sidered as the Stand­ard is launched and promoted.

We feel the inform­a­tion the Stand­ard links to is appro­pri­ate to sup­port key ele­ments of decision mak­ing, and the tech­nic­al aspects described to improve prac­tices will res­ult in res­tor­a­tion and main­ten­ance of a high­er stand­ard in the Nation­al Park. As Peat­land ACTION part­ners expand pro­grammes of activ­ity into more chal­len­ging land­scapes, in the pres­ence of herb­i­vores and at alti­tude, it will be increas­ingly import­ant there is a com­mon under­stand­ing across all sec­tors of land man­age­ment of what good prac­tice looks like and of the require­ments on land man­agers to main­tain res­tor­a­tion sites in good con­di­tion. We feel the Peat­land Stand­ard is clear on these expect­a­tions and works well as a frame­work for fun­ders, reg­u­lat­ors and land man­agers to mon­it­or, eval­u­ate and be account­able for deliv­ery of long-term mul­tiple benefits.

Finally, the Park Author­ity would like to recog­nise the sig­ni­fic­ant achieve­ment reached and the breadth of col­lab­or­a­tion involved in pro­du­cing the Peat­land Stand­ard. We highly value our role as a part­ner in the Peat­land ACTION pro­gramme and the con­tri­bu­tions we make in the early devel­op­ment of doc­u­ments, par­tic­u­larly through the deliv­ery part­ners’ Tech­nic­al Advice Work­ing Group. We look for­wards to con­tinu­ing our com­mit­ment as a part­ner in the devel­op­ment of the programme.

Yours sin­cerely

ANDY FORD Dir­ect­or of Nature & Cli­mate Change