Conservation & Land Management
Our vision: We want the National Park to be an internationally-renowned landscape where… nature, heritage and land are valuable assets, managed and enhanced to provide multiple benefits for all.
What we want to achieve:
Outcome 1: Natural Capital
The Park’s natural resources are enhanced for future generations: important habitats are restored and better connected on a landscape scale.
Outcome 2: Landscape Qualities
The Park’s special landscape qualities and sense of place are conserved and enhanced with more opportunities to enjoy and experience them.
Outcome 3: Climate Change
The natural environment of the Park is better managed to help mitigate and address the impacts of climate change.
Outcome 4: Land Partnerships
New landscape-scale partnerships deliver better integrated management of the land and water environment, providing multiple benefits for nature and people.
Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park is home to some of the most iconic wildlife and landscapes in Scotland and draws visitors from across the globe. Its famous lochs, forests, mountains and heritage are an historic part of the Scottish culture and make a huge contribution to the country, being a haven for nature and the benefits that come from it. Across the Park, 67 sites are designated for their special nature conservation value.
However, the natural environment of the Park faces significant threats including:
- Impacts on freshwater and marine water bodies from problems such as pollution from surrounding land uses.
- Unsustainable levels of wild and domesticated grazing animals in some upland and woodland areas, leading to reduced tree cover and the erosion of soils, which are important carbon stores.
- The spread of invasive non-native species which displace our rich native wildlife.
- The impacts of climate change leading to warmer, wetter weather patterns and a subsequent increase in flood events, major landslides and rapid shifts in natural ecosystems.
Our aim is to work towards overcoming these threats and achieving a vision of improving ecosystems, in order to create a more sustainable long term future for both people and nature.
Achieving these outcomes will help to deliver the following national strategies:
- Scotland’s 2020 Biodiversity Challenge
- Land Use Strategy
- Scottish Forestry Strategy
- River Basin Management Plan
- Flood Risk Management Strategy
- Scotland’s Wild Deer: A National Approach
- Climate Change Plan
- National Marine Plan
- Marine Litter Strategy
- Scottish Landscape Charter
Our guiding principles
To realise our Conservation vision we recognise that:
- How land is managed will change to provide wider public benefits, particularly social and environmental benefits, as well as ensuring economically viable land based businesses.
- Land management objectives will be increasingly guided by the need to support healthy habitats and ecosystems which build resilience to the effects of climate change.
- Land use change needs to respect important landscape characteristics such as wild land qualities or important historic landscape and cultural heritage features.
- The services our land can deliver for wider public benefit are significant and could be increased to promote better natural flood management, carbon storage, timber production and water resource use.
- Wider landscape scale benefits will require more collaboration across land holdings.
- Action is required to address threats to the National Park’s most important species and habitats, including invasive non-native species, visitor and development pressures, unsustainable grazing and diffuse pollution.
How will we measure success by 2023?
Area of new woodland
2000 hectares of woodland expansion by 2023
Area and condition of restored peatland
2000 hectares of restored peatland by 2023
Percentage of designated sites in favourable condition
Increase from 2017 baseline of 76% of designated site features to 80% by 2023
Percentage of water bodies achieving at least good ecological condition
Increase from 2016 baseline of 44% to 59% by 2023