Golden Plover Award 2015

Golden Plover Award finalists 2015 at the Scottish Game Fair (pic: Rob MacDougall)

It was a busy weekend for the Heather Trust at the Scottish Game Fair, where the finalists for 2015's Golden Plover Award for Moorland Management attended a ceremony hosted by Savills to celebrate the work of this year's winner, Mar Estate.

Last winter, Mar Estate restored an area of 1.95ha of bare peat and 4,530m of eroded hags and gullies as part of a wider peatland restoration project undertaken by Dr. Jane Barker of Barker and Bland Ltd, peatland consultants and contractors based in Cumbria. The work was also greatly supported by Stephen Corcoran of the Cairngorms National Park Authority. 

When presenting the award, GWCT Scotland chairman Andrew Salvesen said: “The three finalists represented the amazing variety of moorland management across Scotland, from Aberdeenshire to Shetland.  “However Mar’s efforts have been outstanding.  The estate has successfully integrated game and deer management interests with conservation, commercial forestry and natural woodland regeneration and is a worthy winner of this year’s award.”

Estate owner Mark Nicolson was presented with a framed special edition print kindly donated by artist Colin Woolf at the 2015 Scottish Game Fair. The print is taken from a commissioned watercolour portrait of a golden plover.

The Golden Plover Award was founded in 2013 to celebrate and promote the very best of integrated upland management in Scotland, and this year’s applicants have been asked to demonstrate an engagement with peatland conservation. Savills have again played a key role in supporting the award, which has received praise and backing from a range of bodies and organisations involved in land management.

The judges carried out site visits and interviews with the land managers to identify this year’s winner.  Previous Golden Plover Award winners have been Edinglassie Estate (Donside) in 2013 and Finzean Estate (Deeside) in 2014.

For information about the Golden Plover Award in 2016, which will be presented at next year’s Scottish Game Fair, please email info@heathertrust.co.uk or visit the Golden Plover Award website at www.goldenploveraward.co.uk