Inverness and Nairn Biodiversity Forum – Meeting Notes

The meeting took place at Eden Court Theatre, Wednesday 12th December 2012.

The second Inverness and Nairn Biodiversity Forum highlighted the various activities that havehappened in the area toraise the awareness and protect and restore our biodiversity. The event was an opportunity for local wildlife and environment groups to showcase their work. There were six presentations ranging from the Caledonian Canal to the Abriachan Forest Trust.

1. Attending

Name / Organisation
Jonathan Willet / Highland Council – Biodiversity Officer
Katy Martin / Highland Council – Countryside Ranger
Mick Drury / Trees for Life
Ullie Wenzel / The Conservation Volunteers
Christine Matheson / Abriachan Forest Trust
Stephen Wiseman / Scottish Canals Trust
John Parrott / Coille Alba
Gib Weir
Maureen Weir
Pamela Draper
John Weaver
Claire Pratley
Jake Phillips
Brian Campbell
Adam Ritchie
Vicky Flood
Christine Matheson replaced Suzann Barr who had to call off at short notice. Christine was thanked for filling in at the last minute.

2. Apologies

Janet Bromham / Highland Council - Biodiversity Officer
Elspeth Lawson / The Conservation Volunteers Scotland
Suzann Barr / Abriachan Forest Trust
David Denoon / Inverness Bat Group
Carol Pritchard
Ali Locke / Merkinch LNR

3. Agenda

7.00pmWelcome and Introduction by Chairman Jonathan Willet

7.15pm Local Biodiversity Projects

  • Highland Council Ranger Service – Katy Martin
  • The Conservation Volunteers Scotland, Green Gym – Ullie Wenzel (presentingElspeth Lawson’s presentation)
  • Lower Ness Invasive Non-native Plants Project – John Parrott

8.00pmBreak

Tea / Coffee

8.30pmLocal Biodiversity Projects

  • Trees for Life – Mick Drury
  • Abriachan Forest Trust - Christine Matheson (presenting Suzann Barr’spresentation)
  • Caledonian Canal Environment & Heritage Project – Stephen Wiseman.

9.15pmFeedback, Conclusions and Closing Remarks

4. Summary of presentations.

Katy Martin presented a fascinating insight into the work of the Highland Council Ranger Service, focussing on the work of the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey team. She explored several key projects, including the annual events programme, work at the Merkinch Local Nature Reserve (an area of 54.7 hectares in the South Kessock Area of Inverness), the Ardersier butterfly transects programme and the Ness Islands Bat Survey. She gave the results of theirevents programme from 1st April to 30th September 2012 - 34 public events with 1263 participants; and 41 ‘requested’ events, with 1319 participants and their school outreach programme working with 99 schools.

Ullie Wenzelom The Conservation Volunteers presented recent work by the TCV Inverness Office. Projects include tackling the New Zealand Pygmy weed spreading around the edge of Loch Flemington; conserving Purple Mountain Milk Vetch at Shandwick; building trout croys in the River Peffery; and the Cromarty Firth Invasive Species Project. The TCV Inverness Office worked with 48 Volunteers in 2012. 15 of whom have found employment or have gone on to further education.

John Parrott om Coille Alba presented the Lower Ness Invasive Non-native Plants Project, explaining the background to the project and focussing on work in the Glenurquhart catchment and Lower Ness catchment. Controlled INN species include White Butterbur, American Skunk-cabbage, Giant Hogweed, Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam.

Mick Druryesented the work of Trees for Life in restoring the Caledonian forest, particularly focusing on work in Glen Affric and on the Dundreggan Estate. Trees for Life planted its one millionth tree in 2012 and has created 10,000 acres of new Caledonian Forest. It has pledged to establishone million more treesby planting and natural regeneration within the next five years.

Christine Matheson described the many creative projects undertaken by the Abriachan Forest Trust, particularly in their forest classroom, while also managing a productive forest. Learning outdoors in Abriachan has been proved to be a great success and an innovative education programme has developed. In 2011-12 the Abriachan Forest Trust have successfully worked with nurseries on various seasonal stories and topical trails, with primary schools on literacy and enterprise projects and supported transition groups or holiday clubs. Pupils who are not able to attend full-time primary or secondary education have benefited from focussed work developed specifically for them in discussion with their teachers.

They continue to work with adult groups from Apex and Birchwood Highland and have linked up with Ness Soaps, Adult Basic Education, and the Voluntary Action Fund on an assortment of projects.

Stephen Wisemanom the Scottish Waterways Trust presented the Caledonian Canal Environment & Heritage Project, describing the overall aims and objectives of this wide-ranging initiative. The initiative aims to increase the number of people visiting, appreciating and enjoying the heritage of the Caledonian Canal; to increase heritage volunteering opportunities; create learning opportunities; to raise the profile of and promote the canal’s heritage; to increase the number of people participating in activities within the surrounding area of the canal; and to help to improve the health and wellbeing of local communities through outdoor events and activities. He described the 'Go wild on the Canal' event, which aimed to reach out to the Caledonian Canal's neighbours in Inverness. Live traditional music, a birds of prey display, face and t-shirt painting, heritage ship tours, bike 'top gear' tests, a climbing wall and good food were all well received by a massive 2500 audience over the six hours of festivities.

5. Summing Up.

The range of projects and their scale was impressive, be it the one millionth tree planted by Trees for Life or the 2000 plus people attending the Caledonian Canal's activity day or all the schools work done by the Highland Council Rangers.

Jonathan Willet the job-share Biodiversity Officer for Highland Council said, "National action on biodiversity is taking a bit of time to catch up with all the local activity, but hopefully it will and then things will really start to happen on a large scale. There is a huge amount of local activity that we, to a certain extent, take for granted. This amount of activity did not happen twenty or even ten years ago. So this is a very positive message to take out of the event."

6. Post Meeting Feedback

Overall the meting was found useful by the participants; however the small number attending did reduce the effectiveness of the discussions and disseminating information from the speakers. That said those attending were all very interested and did contribute to the day. There were questions about how well publicised the event was and why it was organised so close to Christmas. These issues will be addressed in future. The overwhelming response was that these meeting should continue.

7. Date of Next Meeting

The next Inverness and Nairn Biodiversity Forum will be held in November 2013 in Inverness.