Working with Scotland’s people to care for our natural heritage To the Right Honourable Dr John Reid MP Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Scotland Sir, I have the honour to present the report of Scottish Natural Heritage for 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2000. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, Scottish Natural Heritage John Markland CBE 12 Hope Terrace Chairman Edinburgh EH9 2AS November 2000 Laid before Parliament under Section 10 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991 To the Right Honourable First Minister Scottish Parliament Sir, I have the honour to present the report of Scottish Natural Heritage for 1 April 1999 to 31 March 2000. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, Scottish Natural Heritage John Markland CBE 12 Hope Terrace Chairman Edinburgh EH9 2AS November 2000 Laid before Parliament under Section 10 of the Natural Heritage (Scotland) Act 1991 Board Members at 31 March 2000 SNH BOARD WEST AREAS BOARD Chairman Chairman Dr John Markland CBE Barbara Kelly CBE Deputy Chairman Vice Chairman Michael Scott Dr Malcolm Ogilvie Simon Fraser Colin Carnie Professor David Ingram OBE, FRSE Andrew Gemmill Barbara Kelly CBE Lady Isobel Glasgow David Laird OBE Dr James Hansom Alice Lambert Dr Philip Ratcliffe Ivor Lewis Richard Williamson Dr Patricia Macdonald Dr Sheena Wurthmann Peter Mackay CB Professor Jeremy Rowan-Robinson SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY Professor Roger Wheater OBE COMMITTEE (to 30th October 1999) Chairman Professor Paul Racey NORTH AREAS BOARD Dr Richard Birnie Chairman Dr Nonie Coulthard Simon Fraser Ian Currie Vice Chairman Dr James Hansom Amanda Bryan Dr Susan Hartley Councillor Stuart Black Professor David Ingram OBE, FRSE Dr Michael Foxley Professor Fred Last OBE ii Hugh Halcro-Johnston Dr Murdo MacDonald John Henderson Dr Patricia MacDonald Isobel Holbourn Dr Donald McLusky Annie Macdonald Dr Malcolm Ogilvie John Macdonald Professor John Proctor Dr Murdo Macdonald Dr Philip Ratcliffe Roger Miket Michael Scott Andrew Thin Professor Brian Staines OBE Dr Nigel Trewin EAST AREAS BOARD Dr Sheena Wurthmann Chairman David Laird OBE Vice Chairman AUDIT COMMITTEE Ian Currie Chairman Dr Nonie Coulthard David Laird OBE Bill Howatson Barbara Kelly CBE Jim McCarthy Ivor Lewis Councillor Alison McInnes Professor Roger Wheater OBE (to 30th October 1999) Guy Wedderburn Michael Williams Captain Antony Wilks MBE Board Members’ addresses and contact numbers are available from all our offices, in our publication Who we are & where we are and on our website: http://www.snh.org.uk Annual Report 1999/2000 iii Chairman’s Preface It is my pleasure as Chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage to present the Annual Report of our activities for 1999/2000. My appointment as Chairman took effect from April 1999, and this report therefore covers my first full year in that role. As someone who was well aware, from previous experience, of the important work which SNH carries out, it has nevertheless been an eye-opener to see just how broad-ranging that work is and how many productive partnerships we enjoy with a wide range of organisations and individuals. I hope you will get a flavour of that from this report. 1999/2000 was an exciting year for SNH, with the advent of the Scottish Parliament providing us with the opportunity to progress a number of key intiatives through into legislation. The first of these has been National Parks, where we saw our advice to Government taken forward by the Scottish Executive through further consultation on draft legislation. We now know, of course, that the National Parks (Scotland) Act is on the statute book - a truly historic event for the new millennium. Progress is also being made towards legislation on Access, as part of the forthcoming Bill on Land Reform, and possible reform of the SSSI (Sites of Special Scientific Interest) system. We look forward to working with the Scottish Executive, the Scottish Parliament and all Scotland’s people to take forward this legislative programme. We have also been keen to respond to the Parliament’s agenda of openness, and to take further steps to provide the public with insight of, and involvement in, the work we do and the decisions we take. We are tackling this on many fronts - for example, through development of our website and publications, by undertaking public consultations, by making our Boards and Committee meetings open to the public and by holding open events throughout Scotland where people can hear about us and our work and question Board members and staff. This report describes SNH’s achievements in 1999/2000 against each of the eleven Themes or iv Programmes by which we structure our work. A companion volume, SNH: Facts & Figures 1999/2000 is also available and contains detailed tables and statistics about our work. Our website (www.snh.org.uk) also contains a range of valuable information. I am proud to present this account of our stewardship of Scotland’s Natural Heritage. John Markland CBE Chairman Scottish Natural Heritage Annual Report 1999/2000 Contents Chairman’s preface . .iv Table of contents . .v Chief Executive’s overview . .vi Performance against Government’s key targets . .viii Maintaining and enhancing diversity . .1 Managing special natural heritage sites . .5 Implementing National Parks . .9 Promoting environmental education and public engagement . .13 Improving land and freshwater management . .17 v Encouraging the sustainable use of marine areas . .21 Facilitating access and recreation . .25 Supporting sustainable development . .29 Supporting the Central Scotland Forest Initiative . .33 Delivering special nature conservation functions . .37 Improving the management of SNH . .41 Financial results . .44 Summary financial statements . .47 Section 29 Nature Conservation Orders . .51 Board members’ interests . .53 SNH offices and staff . .58 Chief Executive’s Overview We now have a clearer framework for our work and, I hope, a clearer statement for our partners. I am pleased to present the There have been notable highlights in policy report of our work for development and advice during the year. We responded 1999/2000. The number to the Minister’s request by providing advice on options and variety of tasks we for National Park boundaries, powers and representation undertake has increased for Loch Lomond and the Trossachs and for Cairngorms. substantially during the We contributed material to the development of the year and our achievements have risen accordingly. consultation paper on the National Parks Bill, advised on Measured against the 20 performance measures the development of the draft legislation, and facilitated determined by the Scottish Executive, we exceeded the process of consultation with the two candidate target on two, met the target on 12, substantially met it on National Park areas. Working with other partners five and only failed to meet it on one. A detailed through the Access Forum, we developed a new code of breakdown of our performance against these targets is responsible behaviour for informal recreation and presented on pages viii and ix. During the year, we also passage in the countryside. The resulting Scottish received a total of 69,579 contacts and nearly all Outdoor Access Code was submitted to the Scottish enquiries were answered on the same day. Where Executive in January 2000. We continued our advisory further action was required, we met our published work on agriculture through the Common Agriculture standards on 95% of occasions. Recognising the Policy. We argued strongly for a substantial switch in substantial additional challenges, I consider this outcome resources from support for production to support for to be a significant accomplishment by SNH. farmers to undertake a wider diversity of roles, including management of biodiversity and of access. The establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Executive’s ‘Partnership for Government’ agenda Our most significant work, acting as the Government’s vi has increased the pace of policy development and agent, was the Natura 2000 programme to deliver the advisory work by SNH. We are pleased to have been Government’s obligations under the EU Birds and able to provide advice on key policy initiatives such as Habitats Directives. We contributed to a major review of National Parks, National Scenic Areas, access to the the UK list of Special Protection Areas under the Birds countryside as well as responding to many other Directive which led to a Government announcement of consultation exercises. In the light of the partnership for the revised list by the year-end. We carried out government programme we have restructured our own consultation on 21 potential SPAs. We reviewed our programmes and re-ordered our priorities to ensure that advice to Government, along with the other statutory SNH plays its part in the delivery of government priorities nature conservation agencies through JNCC, on Special on social inclusion, job creation, rural development and Areas of Conservation under the Habitats Directive and community involvement. provided further proposals to Government in the hope of meeting the requirements of the European Commission. We have also reviewed our corporate mission, aims and As a result we made substantial preparations for a large operating principles. We re-affirmed our mission: working number of consultation exercises to be carried out in the with Scotland’s people to care for our natural heritage. following year on new SPAs and SACs. We recognise We revised our aim to recognise the international as well the considerable anxieties of owners and managers of as national and local value of Scotland’s natural heritage land and others in rural communities about the effects of and the role that we play. We also revised our operating these designations. We therefore welcomed the principles to strengthen our determination to work in opportunity given to us by Government to trial new partnership, to re-emphasise the delegation of decision- approaches for the safeguarding of key species, making within SNH, and to emphasise our new particularly the corncrake in the Hebrides, and approach on open accountability.