The Final Seminar, Battleby - 3 May 2016

A final seminar will be held at the SNH Conference centre at Battleby on 3rd May.  All those who attended one of the three Project Review Seminars have been invited and at present 60 people have asked to attend.

The purpose of the seminar will be to:

1. Review the project findings and establish a common starting point, 
2. Agree the principles of collaborative working, 
3. Review the recommendations from the project report, 
4. Develop ideas for collaborative action (including local knowledge and practical outputs) which participants will commit to, and 
5. Agree how these objectives can be achieved and agree the next steps.

The principles established during the project will form the basis of the discussion during the seminar:

1. Maintain the momentum that has developed during the project. 
2. Development of any follow-on work should include input from all interest groups. 
3. An adaptive, collaborative approach should be adopted. 
4. Local knowledge should be incorporated from start to finish. 
5. There should be a focus on practical output. 
6. Scientific input is essential for establishing the protocol for any further work and for monitoring progress, but it must be clear that further work is not being proposed just to fuel more research. 
7. The declines in bird populations identified by the project require urgent action. Bravery may be required to introduce innovation into the way we approach the issues.

The seminar will provide an opportunity to review where we have got to with the project and more importantly allow us to consider how we can apply the project findings to make progress through the complicated, sensitive issues that are associated with predation.