Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve (NNR) Plan Consultation

Posted: Friday 2 October, 2009 @ 14:53:58

Beinn Eighe NNR is located in the heart of the WRFT area. The reserve, Britain’s first National Nature Reserve, was set up over 50 years ago to protect one of the largest remaining fragments of Caledonian pinewood in north-west Scotland.   Nature reserve management is also of importance to wild fish populations and fisheries: River Ewe system salmon and Loch Maree sea trout spawn in many of the streams which flow from the reserve.

 

Views have been requested by SNH regarding management proposals for the NNR. NNR Proposal can be found at www.nnr-scotland.org.uk or by clicking here. Please note that the consultation ends on the 13th November 2009.

 

The WRFT biologist has submitted a response to the NNR Plan Consultation which focuses on two areas of opportunity: (1) the need to develop a clearer understanding of past and present processes which affect ecosystems and biological productivity at Beinn Eighe NNR; and (2) the need to restore higher ecosystem fertility within the reserve, focussing on increasing the natural availability of life-limiting nutrients, primarily phosphorus [P], for the benefit of wildlife populations and people living within the surrounding area.

 

Beinn Eighe NNR is ideally placed to make an important contribution to national and international efforts aimed at developing and demonstrating ways of reversing ecosystem-degradation processes currently progressing at alarming rates in many other parts of the world. This is a challenge which SNH should invest in: levels of natural productivity over much of Scotland could be, and should, be much higher.       

 

Please click here or go to the 'downloads' page to see Peter's response; note that it does not necessarily represent the views of WRFT.