Cairngorms Cli­mate Conference

Monday 9^th March 2020

Work­shop 2: Enrich­ing Nature: The Route to Help the Cairngorms to Mit­ig­ate and Adapt to Cli­mate Change

Key Speak­er: Francesca Osowska, CEO Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Host: Andy Ford, Head of Con­ser­va­tion Facilitator:

Brief over­view

Of the 5 IPBES drivers for biod­iversity loss the Cairngorms is par­tic­u­larly vul­ner­able to chan­ging land­use and cli­mate change. The attendees were divided into 5 work­ing groups. Each one pro­duced a pre­ferred proposal.

Main points raised

1. Peat­land Res­tor­a­tion • Peat­land res­tor­a­tion needs to be able to expand rap­idly. • There would be bene­fit to train­ing for estate work­ers, par­tic­u­larly game­keep­ers, in res­tor­a­tion tech­niques to increase the skill base. This could be delivered though col­leges. • Relax­a­tion of spe­cies licen­cing would help to facil­it­ate peat­land res­tor­a­tion dur­ing spring and early summer.

2. Graz­ing man­age­ment • A reduc­tion in deer num­bers is par­tic­u­lar import­ant as it impacts on most oth­er meas­ures for mit­ig­a­tion (Peat­land and wood­land expan­sion). • A bal­ance of incent­ive and reg­u­la­tion is required to achieve it.

3. Res­tor­a­tion of nat­ur­al pro­cesses through eco­sys­tem improve­ments • River Catch­ment ini­ti­at­ives are a good deliv­ery mech­an­ism for wide spread eco­sys­tem man­age­ment, includ­ing catch­ments bey­ond con­fines of aquat­ic hab­it­at. • Big scale think­ing is required across the whole catch­ment (include wood­land and peat­land for man­age­ment of water and runoff).

4. Optim­ising land­use to be flex­ible and deliv­er mul­tiple bene­fits • Land man­age­ment need to con­sider more flex­ible prac­tices and approaches. • There is a rel­at­ively small res­id­ent com­munity with­in the CNP and so should be able to engage them in key decision making.

5. Ban Muir­burn • This will require legis­la­tion and reg­u­la­tion. • Good estate fire plans could be pre­pared to man­age the pos­sible increase fire risk. • There may be wide­spread implic­a­tions to com­munit­ies includ­ing crofters, farm­ers and estates, this needs to be man­aged equit­ably. • It will mean sig­ni­fic­ant change to landscape.

Main points on pri­or­it­ies for going forward

1. Strong focus on land­use was required to achieve a hol­ist­ic, sus­tain­able approach. This should also include a con­sid­er­a­tion of end­ing muirburn.
2. A big reduc­tion in deer num­bers is a key aim to facil­it­ate oth­er mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. It is likely that more than vol­un­tary meas­ures may be needed.
3. An increase in peat­land res­tor­a­tion capa­city was needed but this could bene­fit estates eco­nom­ic­ally and through more skilled staff.
4. Eco­sys­tem ser­vices need to be strongly linked to hab­it­at res­tor­a­tion to high­light the dir­ect pub­lic benefits.

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

August 2020