Glendoe Estate near Loch Ness awarded international accreditation to recognise ongoing work in wildlife management and conservation
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A wildlife estate near Loch Ness has been presented with a prestigious award for its conservation work including monitoring golden eagles.
Glendoe Estate, near Fort Augustus, has received Wildlife Estates Scotland (WES) accreditation which recognises work in wildlife management and conservation.
It is among seven Scottish farms and estates – accounting for nearly 170,000 acres – to be presented with the award at the GWCT Scottish Game Fair, with Màiri McAllan MSP, Scottish Government Minister for Environment and Land Reform, presenting the accolades.
They included one new accreditation to Glenlyon Estate in Perthshire while the remaining six properties received reaccreditation, a process which takes place every five years.
Glendoe Estate has been busy with an ongoing objective of removing non-native species and connecting fragmented habitat.
Recently, the estate removed 70 hectares of non-native species from its policies and replaced it with native broadleaf species to connect Glen Tarff Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Easter Ness SSSI.
The estate has also fenced off eight individual woodland coups, amounting to 11.5 hectares, within Glen Tarff SSSI to protect it from deer browsing and to encourage natural regeneration with a little supplemental planting.
It also has an ongoing collaboration with energy company SSE, monitoring golden eagles on the estate and sharing the data with local schoolchildren who are eager to learn about the wildlife on their doorstep.
WES is a national version of the international Wildlife Estates (WE) initiative and is endorsed by the European Commission’s directorate-general environment, whose objective is to protect, preserve and improve the environment for present and future generations.
Just over a decade since WES was established, Scotland currently sits second in the league table of wildlife estates accredited land on 1.25 million acres, with only Spain ahead on approximately 1.6 million acres. WES is aiming to double accredited land to 2.5 million acres.
Between them, WES accredited landholdings have stewardship of 99 nationally protected sites (SSSI, NNR) and 79 internationally designated sites (SAC, SPA, Ramsar etc).
Environment and Land Reform Minister Màiri McAllan said WES played a vital role in ensuring habitat and wildlife management continued to align with best practice across Scotland.
"These new accreditations are well-earned and well deserved – they demonstrate commitment to delivering environmental, economic and social benefits to rural communities including increasing biodiversity, providing healthy food products such as venison and bringing Scotland’s people closer to our beautiful natural environment," she said.
Dee Ward, chairwoman of WES, said the accreditation was a meticulous process, asking those in charge of managing land to strive for the highest standards of wildlife and conservation management.
"These farms and estates are undertaking exceptionally important work, benefitting our environment and biodiversity," she said.
"It is pleasing that this work, often undertaken at significant cost to businesses, can be publicly acknowledged through WES.
"The accredited properties are diverse, both in location and the sectors they are involved in. However, they have all demonstrated a common approach to best practice and provide a broad range of information, including species data and conservation projects, which helps to provide significant insight on what is working well and where our collective conservation efforts need to be targeted."
