New Report: Understanding Land Management in the Cairngorms National Park
The Cairngorms National Park is a rich and varied landscape that supports a broad spectrum of land use and management activities, including livestock farming, forestry, tourism, sporting pursuits, and habitat restoration. Gaining insight into how different landholdings function is key to understanding the broader landscape, informing future policy, and achieving a sustainable balance between economic resilience and environmental stewardship.
To better understand how land is managed across the Cairngorms National Park, in 2024 we conducted a survey of 18 landholdings, covering nearly 40% of the park area. Our survey gathered insights into land management practices, enterprise types, financial sustainability, and employment.
— Alix Syder, Lead Researcher, Centre for Landscape Regeneration
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Key Insights
Traditional land management activities such as grazing, forestry, and recreational sports remain a strong foundation of the economic and cultural identity of the landscape. However, due to shifts in both public and private funding, an increasing number of landholdings are exploring new income streams to diversify revenue.
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Landholdings in the survey ranged from 890 ha to 49,000 ha, with between 1 and 10 enterprises recorded per landholding.
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Tourism activities were recorded for most landholdings and included sports, outdoor pursuits, holiday accommodation, cafés, restaurants, and events.
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Livestock farming and forestry production remain key components of landholding enterprises. Sporting activities were also common, though their contribution to income varied from commercial operations to personal use.
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Conservation activities were recorded on 15 landholdings and included woodland, peatland, and river restoration.
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Landholdings exhibited mixed income streams, including agri-environment payments, private donations, public funding, biodiversity and carbon credits, tourism, residential housing, energy generation, and mixed production.
Future Leaders Programme:
Much of the data gathered for this survey can be credited to Gabriel Rowland and Veronika Ljungberg, two Research Assistants placed in the Cairngorms National Park through the Future Leaders Programme. This initiative, developed by the Centre for Landscape Regeneration and Cambridge Zero, aims to train a new generation of environmental researchers through immersive, real-world experience. Gabriel and Veronika’s work—conducting in-person surveys and engaging with stakeholders—was vital to understanding land use across nearly 40% of the Park. Their contributions helped ensure this research delivers practical insights for sustainable land management.
— Gabriel Rowland, Future Leaders Programme Research Assistant
What’s Next
The results of this survey will be used across the CLR to enhance understanding of land management in the region by examining both current and future land use. This includes land use scenario modelling to assess the impacts of various potential future landscapes on key factors such as biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, and economic outcomes.
The study was carried out by Alix Syder, Dr Joshua Copping, Dr Richard Bradbury, Dr Tom Finch, and Dr Rob Field of the RSPB, in close collaboration with Dr Catherine Waite and Professor Andrew Balmford of the University of Cambridge.
Contact: clr_admin@plantsci.cam.ac.uk
