Mar Lodge Estate: Ben Dolphin Talk

Roger Owen

NEMT was fortunate to host Ben Dolphin, a Mar Lodge Estate ranger, as he narrated some of the management challenges on the Estate in a compelling and entertaining talk to some 25 NEMT members on 11 March 2025.

The management of Mar Lodge Estate, located in the Cairngorms National Park, faces a range of challenges, primarily related to conservation, land use, and balancing human activities with the preservation of natural resources.

Ben described the key challenge of maintaining the Estate's biodiversity considering that it has a range of priority habitats, including ancient pine forest. other woodlands, mountain scrub, wetlands, and heathlands. Managing these ecosystems requires a careful balance between promoting biodiversity and, in part, allowing sustainable land use practices such as deer stalking and forestry: effective deer management is critical.

Visitor management is a major and ongoing challenge. Mar Lodge is a popular destination for outdoor activities like hiking, biking, XC skiing, and wildlife watching. NEMT members, after all, participate in all of these activities. It is crucial to ensure that tourism and recreational use is sustainable, prevents habitat damage, and does not disrupt the estate's ecological balance. The challenge was amply illustrated by photos of the car park on a busy day and the count of 1500 tents on the Estate in 7 months!

Another impressive set of slides showed Strava plots of (some of) those crossing the plateau: while most followed the main paths, individuals were shown as having walked or cycled almost everywhere else. And Ben pointed out that, while humans tended to follow paths - though perhaps braiding them as surfaces deteriorate - dogs were not so considerate, and would often criss-cross the ground, off the lead, and disturbing nesting birds and their chicks. While "one man and his dog" might not mean much harm, the cumulative effect of scores or hundreds of visitors was a worry.

Happy outdoor kids! © NTS Mar Lodge

The Mar Lodge Estate rangers also engage the local community and stakeholders in conservation efforts, and in promoting awareness and responsibility. It´s a great place for educating youngsters in environmental good practice. Ben touched on the immense value of volunteer effort, including a long-standing arrangement with the John Muir Trust and some perennial and reliable volunteers who help with a wide variety of management tasks. He also explained the thinking that went behind the establishment of a new footpath down the left-hand side of the Quoich, a project supported by £1000 from NEMT funds.

Many thanks to Ben for travelling from Mar Lodge to Aberdeen and back again to talk to NEMT members, and for giving us much food for thought.

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