Q6:  How would designating the area as a National Park bring wider benefits to Scotland as a whole and support national priorities? 1500 words allowed

 A statutory Galloway National Park combined with the charitable status of the UNESCO Biosphere will provide long-term commitment, focus, and geographic reach to unlock investment and create a greener and more prosperous future. By conservative estimates,  the new Park should bring an additional £92m spend and a further 1,500 FTE jobs. The additional value to the area would be over £250m pa with the creation of 2,000 FTE jobs.

The Park offers a unique opportunity to gain the synergies of working with the UNESCO Biosphere to make our region a net contributor financially and delivering an enormous boost to our communities and local and national economy, far exceeding the cost.

As a leading body in halting and reversing biodiversity loss and addressing climate change, Galloway is an exemplar to test, deliver and showcase innovative nature-based solutions as part of the national Natural Capital Innovation Zone and sharing that learning across Scotland and beyond-.

National Nature Recovery: National Parks promote and protect nature by working with others and piloting innovations that are replicable elsewhere.  With its wide variety of habitats and land uses, Galloway is ideally placed.  Strong effective partnership working will allow Galloway to become a flagship for the new model of National Parks piloting innovative approaches.

National Parks and Biospheres both have access to international networks. Sharing knowledge and experience at this level and providing authoritative leadership on some of the challenging issues we face is hugely powerful. 

Development of innovative techniques to reverse biodiversity loss and address climate change is now vital. There is a strong academic research base to draw on with universities at the Crichton Campus, alongside two local SRUC sites and partnership working with University of Edinburgh, Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes, and James Hutton Institute. The South of Scotland Regional Economic Partnership has identified skills as one of its priorities (alongside housing and transport) that the Park will draw on. This work supports the SFC’s Pathfinder project for learning and innovation in the land-based sector, delivering training and apprenticeships and activity on rural skills for conservation (e.g. East Ayrshire CCLP, Building Futures Galloway at Whithorn).  Transitioning to meet the demands of a carbon negative future, we need to build our indigenous skills base to deliver future nature-based solutions and encourage people to move into the area, excited by the employment opportunities.  The Park can harness those opportunities, through collaboration and inclusion as it develops and supports the Wellbeing Economy.  This will be key to achieving the level of long-term committed management required by OECMs to contribute to the 30x30 target and nature networks. 

Traditional, extensive and intensive farms provide an ideal resource to explore Scottish Government’s ambitions for Just Transition in Land Use and Agriculture.  We are already actively engaged in this work as the UNESCO Biosphere is the delivery partner for the agricultural transition project of the Borderlands Natural Capital Programme.   Large scale farming enterprises, particularly dairy, need alternative models which enable them to continue to offer food security within a stable and improving environment. The Dairy Research and Innovation Centre is developing models and will be a key partner in the Park’s development.

As a strong group, emerging from COP26, the South-West Scotland Regenerative Farming Network has 182 members committed to nature-friendly farming, community participation and providing advice to farmers on making greener farming pay. The group recently won the Food and Farming Award at the Nature of Scotland Awards. 

The Park will build on previous and emerging landscape-scale schemes led by the UNESCO Biosphere, within the Park boundary, drawing on experience from SoSE. The 5 year Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership initiated a wealth of community generated projects with excellent engagement, and stakeholders ready to commit given the more permanent opportunities of a Park.  The Borderlands Natural Capital Programme is delivering Sustainable Solway and restoration schemes including wetlands at Threave Estate.

Galloway Forest Park, occupying about 20% of the Park area, must continue to produce timber through sustainable forest management. Planting mixed species, more broadleaves, conversion to continuous cover and natural regeneration all provide opportunities to deliver nature recovery, ensure resilience, mitigate climate change, improve the landscape and promote health and well-being.   The Park working alongside FLS, SF and private woodland owners, would deliver significant environmental gains, innovation, skills, and expertise in this area, supporting the South of Scotland approach to woodland creation agreed at the CoSS in February 2024.

Adapting and Mitigating Climate Change:  Land use practises need to change and adapt for us to survive.  The Park is a critical bellwether, with many species at the northern or southern edges of their range. We must have a functioning and connected landscape to allow wildlife to move and thrive.  As a national RLUP pilot, the South of Scotland has produced a RLUF to identify and evidence the changes in land management that is required.  With the Borderlands Natural Capital Data and Investment pilots and NatureScot Assessment tool, the Park will make these decisions in an open and transparent manner, in collaboration with communities, statutory and third sectors, and delivered through innovative blended and private finance models.  This will be the largest landscape scale application of its kind and the jewel in the crown of the national Natural Capital Innovation Zone.    

Galloway has 25% of Scotland’s saltmarshes and extensive dune systems and the Solway is internationally important for wildfowl.  We must adapt to the effects of rising sea levels on our extensive estuarine habitats and one response is the Solway Firth Partnership’s proposal to expand saltmarsh and achieve OECM status, supported by the Biosphere’s discussions with Scottish Government about OECMs and nature networks. The Park with its huge and vulnerable coastline is ideally placed to work with partners to ameliorate such threats and deliver carbon sequestration.   

Alongside benefits for nature, restoration of deep peat soils in Galloway will make a huge contribution to climate change targets by reviving its natural sequestering capacity.  The Crichton Carbon Centre is playing a leading role, with NatureScot, in its Peatland ACTION plan. The Park provides a readily accessible testbed for initiatives to address restoration with the University of Glasgow School of Social and Environmental Sustainability.

Delivering the Wellbeing Economy Galloway is well-placed to become a significant net contributor to the Scottish economy through tourism and highlighting the benefits of living and working here. It is able to absorb many more visitors without detriment to either their experience or the environment.   The Biosphere is already recognised as one of only 4 UK sites to have made it to the National Geographic’s Cool List 2024 and the Rough Guide’s Best Travel Destinations 2024 as part of Scotland’s UNESCO Trail. National Park branding would add to this.

Looking at the area covered by the Park, we have used STEAM data to estimate our visitors, their spending and the jobs they generate.  We compared these figures with those for Exmoor and Northumberland NPs (similar in character and having the lowest visitor numbers among existing UK Parks) and Pembrokeshire NP (because of its coastline). Based on these figures we are confident that designation will deliver significant benefits in visitor numbers, income and jobs:

  • Conservatively, visitors will increase by almost half a million from 883,000 to1,325,000 pa;

  • Spending will increase by £92.4m pa;

  • FTE jobs will increase by 1,523.

The Park should not be considered in isolation; the wider area, including the whole of the Biosphere, will gain additional visitors.  “Gateway” settlements will benefit from extra overnight visitors and shoppers along with the development of new tourism initiatives, led both by communities and entrepreneurs.  These gateways include Dumfries, Castle Douglas, Dalbeattie, Dalmellington, and Girvan, along with smaller communities.

Existing attractions will see increased visitor numbers including:

The STEAM figures for Exmoor assess both the NP itself and its area of influence, allowing an assessment of the wider economic benefits of a Galloway National Park. We believe that through economic, environmental and social leverage the wider area would benefit to the tune of an additional £86m of visitor spend and almost 500 extra jobs.

The Park could, through leverage, pull in an additional £80m - £100m in support of projects for communities, climate change and nature recovery. 

In total, a Galloway National Park could generate:

  • at least £258m pa

  • 2,000 new FTE jobs. 

These figures would be absolutely transformative for this region and could help to provide the energy and confidence it needs to navigate these challenging times.