Conservation success highlighted at Scottish parliament event

Press Release

A Sutherland estate which has been awarded prestigious international accreditation for its conservation work has told a cross-party group of MSPs about how such work could help meet Scotland’s nature restoration and climate action goals. 

Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate in Sutherland not only secured the coveted Wildlife Estates Scotland (WES) accreditation at ‘gold’ level, but also received the highest score achieved by any organisation in Europe.

At a Parliamentary reception yesterday [18 February] Ben Mardall, Estate Manager, Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate, David Allison, Head Stalker, and Jo Holden, Head of Sustainability at Grosvenor Rural Estates,  discussed the estate’s work with Gillian Martin, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action, along with MSPs Alexander Burnett, Edward Mountain, Finlay Carson, Tim Eagle, Ariane Burgess, Emma Roddick, Graeme Dey, Emma Harper and Jim Fairlie, Minister for Agriculture.

Also in attendance at the event were representatives from the Scottish Government and NatureScot as well as Ross Macleod, Head of Policy (Scotland), for the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, Mark Bilsby, CEO of the Atlantic Salmon Trust and Sarah-Jane Laing, CEO of Scottish Land & Estates.

Climate Action Secretary Gillian Martin said: 

“Across Scotland, WES estates are restoring habitats, supporting species recovery, improving biodiversity, and sharing what they learn with others. And importantly, they’re also supporting local jobs, education, and rural communities. It’s a great example of how caring for the environment and strengthening the rural economy can absolutely go hand in hand.

“I would like to congratulate Reay Forest Estate for achieving the first-ever WES Gold accreditation, it’s a huge achievement that sets a high bar, showing exactly what can happen when land managers combine productive land use with a real commitment to looking after nature.”

Ben Mardall, Estate Manager, Grosvenor’s Reay Forest Estate said: “Everything we do at Reay Forest centres on our commitment to delivering a lasting economic, social and environmental benefit in our communities and safeguarding the estate’s sensitive environmental habitats. The award is a powerful endorsement of our approach and reflects Grosvenor’s continued investment in protecting and enhancing one of Europe’s last wildernesses. Wildlife Estates offers the right framework to evaluate and record strategies which have worked well and enables us to cooperate and  share best practice with other land managers and conservation organisations. Everyone at Grosvenor is absolutely delighted to have secured this international recognition.”

Miles Montgomerie, chair of Wildlife Estates Scotland, said:

"WES landholdings deliver biodiversity improvements, climate change mitigation and habitat conservation at scale and are increasingly seen as trusted partners by NatureScot and the Scottish Government at a time when working together has never been more important. I’m incredibly impressed by the exceptional work undertaken by Reay Forest as part of the Wildlife Estates family and I congratulate them on their achievement.”

WES is a national version of the European Wildlife Estates initiative, endorsed by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment. Administered by Scottish Land & Estates, it is open to any size and type of landholding, farm, or estate. 

Scotland is currently in second place in the league table of Wildlife Estates’ accredited land in Europe, with only Spain ahead. 

Reay Forest is a traditional rural estate renowned for its excellence in conservation, leading country sports and the beauty of its unspoilt landscape. 

Over the past year, alongside Grosvenor’s two other rural estates, the Reay Forest Estate has undergone the most accurate information gathering on record of its soils, water and all the living things in its environment, enabling the organisation to make more informed decisions to promote nature recovery and climate resilience.

Alongside existing data, the estate’s expert teams worked with specialist consultants and partner organisations to undertake an extensive ground truthing exercise. A series of science-led surveys were carried out across the rural estates including using lasers to scan from the air to create 3D models of the land that are accurate to 5cm, soil organic carbon sampling – measuring the soil’s ability to store carbon and water – as well as an innovative pilot investigating whether environmental DNA in soils can be used as an early indicator of ecological biodiversity and therefore soil health.

Working in partnership with conservation charity the Atlantic Salmon Trust (AST), the Reay Forest Estate is delivering one of the UK’s most extensive landscape-scale, ecosystem-wide, conservation projects with the goal of restoring critically endangered wild Atlantic salmon populations. 

It is hoped the project will restore 118km2 of the landscape – an area the size of urban Manchester – and plant up to a million trees, enhancing biodiversity and benefitting the whole ecosystem. 

The effectiveness of these management actions is being continually assessed using robust science and the latest monitoring techniques, with the knowledge gained benefiting other river systems throughout the world. 

The estate carefully manages its deer population using a science-led approach with the aim of supporting measurable improvements in biodiversity and habitat. The Reay Forest estate undertakes extensive habitat impact monitoring that is carried out in conjunction with regular population counts to help inform the management of this important resource and establish sustainable deer densities.