Research Report No. 1253 Overcoming the barriers to participation on NatureScot’s National Nature Reserves by disadvantaged communities RESEARCH REPORT Research Report No. 1253 Overcoming the barriers to participation on NatureScot’s National Nature Reserves by disadvantaged communities For further information on this report please contact: Molly Aldam NatureScot Silvan House, 3rd Floor East 231 Corstorphine Road EDINBURGH EH12 7AT Telephone: 0131 3162600 E-mail:
[email protected] This report should be quoted as: Aldam, M. 2020. Overcoming the barriers to participation on NatureScot’s National Nature Reserves by disadvantaged communities. NatureScot Research Report No. 1253. This report, or any part of it, should not be reproduced without the permission of NatureScot. This permission will not be withheld unreasonably. The views expressed by the author(s) of this report should not be taken as the views and policies of NatureScot. © NatureScot 2020. RESEARCH REPORT Summary Overcoming the barriers to participation on NatureScot’s National Nature Reserves by disadvantaged communities Research Report No. 1253 Project: Making Natural Connections Contractor: Molly Aldam (NatureScot graduate placement 2019-2020) Year of publication: 2020 Keywords National Nature Reserves, outdoor access, inequalities, disadvantaged communities, Tentsmuir NNR, Dundee Background This report comes out of a graduate placement running from September 2019 to September 2020. As part of NatureScot’s equality commitment to improve access to the outdoors for people who are underrepresented as a result of protected characteristics, the placement was proposed by the Forth and Managing Nature Reserves teams. National Nature Reserves (NNRs) are at the heart of our work to connect people with nature, yet many of their visitors are from a narrow socio-economic demographic.