New Chief Executive for the Cairngorms National Park Authority

Congratulations to Grant Moir on his appointment as Chief Executive of the Cairngorms National Park Authority; he will take up the post in March 2013.

I look forward to continuing to work with him as the Chief Executive of a member organisation but also to welcoming his successor as representative of the Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park Authority on the Forum.

Additional coverage: The Scotsman

Changes to Snaring Legislation

Photo: Scottish Rural Network

See the Scottish Rural Network article that explains developments ahead of the implementation of legislation that will require unique identification tags to be be fitted to all snares from 1 April 2013.

Irish Peatland Conservation

Photo: IPCC

The scale of the Irish peatland challenge is revealed in The Irish Peatland Conservation Council's (IPCC) new action plan "Ireland’s Peatland Conservation Action Plan 2020".

The website has more detail but as a starter:

• 269,267ha of peatlands are of conservation interest in Ireland. This represents 23% of the original peatland area in the country.

• There are 736 peatland sites of conservation value in the Republic of Ireland and 138 peatland sites of conservation value in Northern Ireland.

• 129 actions are needed to conserve our peatlands and return degraded and threatened peatlands to favourable conservation status.

Does this information provide lessons for us in Scotland?

Catchment Management & Payment for Ecosystem Services

This post does not have the snappiest of titles, but do not let this fool you. Payment for Ecosystem Services is a developing concept and could have far reaching implications for land management. If a financial return can be generated for producing public benefits in the form of Ecosystem Services this could provide another income stream for land managers.

At present it is largely the domain of the scientists, but practical projects are developing to apply this concept in the wild. South West Water is running a scheme on Exmoor, other water companies are active in Northern England.

To keep up-to-date, it is worth a quickRead of the briefing note produced by the Valuing Nature Network. This is based on the discussion that took place at a meeting in Leeds in January 2013 where I gave a presentation on land management issues.