Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 07 June 2022
Of course, the member is correct. Our parks are living, breathing, dynamic spaces with communities in them who live and work there, including our agricultural communities. As I progress through my speech, I will talk about the process for creating new national parks and how we can make sure that stakeholders’ views are incorporated.
A striking example of how initiatives in our parks can draw in additional funding is the £12.5 million that was recently secured from the National Lottery Heritage Fund for the “heritage horizons Cairngorms 2030: people and nature thriving together” project. However, the work of chasing down and securing additional funding for nature restoration does not stop with individual landscape-scale projects. Both our national parks are working in partnership with the other national parks in the United Kingdom to develop a private finance mechanism to bring in investment for nature restoration. Through the wild Strathfillan project, the Loch Lomond authority is piloting approaches to leveraging significant private investment to improve ecosystem services and restore nature.
Our two national parks host internationally important habitats such as Atlantic rainforest and high-altitude moorland and grassland, as well as the plants and animals that rely on them, including unique species such as the Scottish crossbill, which is a distinct subspecies of the common crossbill. Sadly, the capercaillie—one of the iconic species of our Caledonian pinewoods—has, over recent decades, experienced sharp declines in its population as a result of the pressures of climate change and disturbance. However, the Cairngorms Capercaillie Project has recently secured £2.9 million to allow local communities to deliver habitat management and improve visitor management in order to reduce the disturbance of those magnificent birds.