Welcome to the 11th meeting in 2015 of the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. Remind you before the first agenda item that we should be all switching off mobile phone set effect broadcasting system. If you notice that committee members are consulting their tablets, it's for their work in the committee at the present time and digital format. We have apologies from Claudia Beamish and agenda item 1 is the decision on taking items in private. The first of those is the paper regarding the meeting in Orkney as part of the Parliament day in Kirkwall in June. Are we agreed that we should take that in private? A letter to the Scottish Government on the wild fisheries review. Are we agreed to take that in private? We are. To seek agreement with the committee then that we do those at future meetings if need be. The second item today is support at legislation and the consideration of a draft single use carrier bag charged fixed penalty notices and amendments Scotland regulation 2015. The instrument's been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that the Parliament must approve it before provisions may come into force. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider the motion to approve the instrument under agenda item 3. I welcome this morning the cabinet secretary, Richard Lochhead. Good morning to you and your official Pete Stapleton policy manager for waste prevention in the Scottish Government. Good morning. I wonder if the cabinet secretary wishes to speak to the instrument. Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to the committee. It's now five months, given our take, since we first introduced the carrier bag charging in Scotland, which, of course, has the aim of tackling Scotland's addiction to using single use carrier bags, of which hundreds of millions of them have been used in recent times, and its aim is to cut litter in our society at the same time. Clearly, the committee supported the regulations originally, and it seems that the policy is working very well in Scotland just now, and some of our larger retailers are already reporting, after a matter of just a few months, up to 90 per cent reduction in the use of bags within their particular stores, so that's a good sign. I hope that the committee will agree, and also I think that we can welcome the fact that shoppers around Scotland have embraced the new policy and very much welcomed it, and that's certainly my experience speaking to many consumers in local shops in Elgin and Magdalene constituency. The regulations today address two issues that will help to support the aims of the charge. The first is to set the level and time limit of fixed penalties for breaches of the regulations. Fixed penalties are there to complement the existing criminal sanctions, offering proportionate enforcement options for minor infractions. While last year's Better Regulation Act established the principle of fixed penalties, the regulations before us will set the fine level at £200, as we indeed advised ourselves last year. They also provide the other outstanding details needed. They discounted amount for early payment and the time limit on issuing penalty notices. Of course I expect very few retailers to deliberate breach the rules, and that enforcement officers will in the first instance provide advice to retailers who are not complying. So these regulations will also amend the 2014 regulations to exempt bags used for the delivery of goods in prisons, where the bag is necessary for safety or security. The prisoners who use the service have no option but to accept the bag that is given to them, and the closed environment of prisons means that there is not really a litter issue, which is also one of the key aims of the legislation. So applying the charge there would therefore not support the purpose of reducing litter or encouraging behaviour change. So I therefore ask the committee to hopefully support the regulations before you. Thank you very much. Do members wish to ask any questions? First of all, Jim Hulman. Thank you very much, convener, and more on Cabinet Secretary. It's been brought to my attention that there are some retailers selling bags at six pence. Of course, five pence is the amount in that five pence. If sold at that amount goes to charity, I just wondered if the cabinet secretary had evidence that some retailers are also selling at six or even ten pence, and if that was the case, would all of that six pence go to the retailer as opposed to the five pence that we know would go to a charity? Clearly, we are urging all retailers that funds raised as a result of the legislation should be devoted to good causes. We have the carrier bag commitment to which many retailers have already signed up to, where they will openly report where the money is going to. As we have seen in the news over the last few months, many retailers have publicised the charities or other good causes that they are going to benefit. In terms of the actual charges themselves, there are different charges in our retailers because there are different types of bags being sold. For instance, Sainsbury's only sells bags for life, so the bag you get I understand is a multi-use bag as opposed to a single-use bag, so there are different bags being sold by different retailers. Ultimately, it's their decision as to what particular bags they want to sell, and consumers will no doubt have their say at the shops in question. To further clarify that, for example, whether there is an option to take a five pence cheap bag and a roll-in option to take a six pence bag is all of that six pence going to the retailer or is five pence off the six pence, which is in the legislation, going towards the designated charity or good cause? I'll be up to the retailer to calculate within the regulations what they want to give to the good causes because the regulations, we may recall, VT can be paid, the costs of administrating the scheme can be deducted, etc. If the retailers you're referring to that are charging more than five pence are major retailers, which I suspect they are, the likelihood is a sign up to carry by commitment, which means they'll make all that information transparent when the first reporting period, which is within six months of the charge coming into force, ends, and then that information hopefully will be in the public domain on the website, so clearly they'll report transparently, hopefully, as to where the breakdown of the six pence or ten pence, whatever goes. Okay, thanks. That's useful. Just two small points for clarity. Local authorities will be in force, will enforce regulations. Are they being paid to carry out that duty, and to whom do the fines go? So, the agreement that we have with local government who have worked closely with all the regulations is that they are yes responsible for clearly compliance. They're not specifically paid for that per se. It's one of the duties of local government and the trading standards officers in most cases who carry out that function to enforce as they see fit, and local authorities have, as far as I'm concerned, to a large extent embraced the legislation. As I said in my opening remarks, for the early months of the new charge it's very much a like-touch approach and the advice is given to retailers, particularly smaller retailers who are more likely to be ones who are relevant to this point, who perhaps have not been charging if any of them are coming across, the local authority will give advice and say, here's the regulations, here's a reminder of the regulations, you're supposed to be charging, and that's how we're clearly taking a like-touch approach as people get used to the new regulations. In terms of the fines, my understanding is that the local authority will get the fixed fine, we'll see within the local authority, but in terms of the criminal sanctions, clearly that could be within the courts and the wider justice system, as per usual, with all fines. Dave Thompson and then Mike Russell. Morning, cabinet secretary, Mr Stapleton. Just a week and a follow-up on that general point about the fixed penalties and the discounted scheme. I would certainly agree with you, as a past director of trading standards, that the like-touch approach is always the best one.  Do you take them to court or do you find them? That is the right way because small retailers in particular have huge burdens to face and we need to help them all we can. I just wondered, though, in the context of the fixed penalties, there's a big difference between a small corner shop and a big supermarket with all of the legal resources that the supermarkets and others have. Although having a fixed penalty is quite a useful thing in its standard and everybody gets hit at the same if they refuse to comply, the effect of £100 on a major supermarket is obviously going to be less than the effect of a nut bite on an elephant, whereas £100 to a small corner trader proportionately is much more. I just wondered if any thought had been given to variable fixed penalties, whereas if you did find that a large retailer was deliberately flouting and you couldn't persuade them to comply, that a larger fixed penalty could be applied, maybe based on turnover of the store of the business or floor area or something like that. I just wondered if that was considered, because otherwise £100 to a major retailer is not really a disincentive. It is a fair point to raise and I respect your experience as a former head of trading standards so that we know a lot more about these things than many of us are in the table here today. I think that the first point to make clear is that, and I will answer your questions, but clearly all the indications are that most retailers of all sizes, particularly the bigger retailers, are on board and see it as a responsible thing to do to make sure that they are binding by the regulations and implementing it. That is all the evidence that we have so far. The scenario of a major retailer with a reputation to protect clearly on the high street would flout this rather remote, but it is a genuine question that you ask. To answer a couple of your points, the figure of £200, of course, was agreed, particularly with local government, as a proportionate level. As you said yourself, it can be £100 if you pay early the fine, and it is also in line with the thick penalties for tobacco legislation and fly tipping, and therefore that is why that figure was mooted and agreed and pushed as the best option by local government in particular. In terms of the options available, clearly if a large retailer, as you quite rightly say, which may have a turnover of millions of pounds, were to flout the regulations and break the law, the local authorities, of course, do have other options, and I think that we would anticipate that we may explore those other options as opposed to £800 fine for a large retail chain in Scotland. I want to convey that there are other options there. Clearly there are the criminal sanctions, which can either be up to £20,000 of fines or unlimited through indictment and through the process. I think that caters for all eventualities. However, as I say, the indications just now are that major retailers in particular, who are the ones that you are highlighting, are abiding by the regulations. To point out at the start of this, the extraordinary success of the policy, and the policies that I know you have long believed in, and I think that you are quite entitled to feel very vindicated by that success, but it is a policy of behaviour change. Whilst I fully appreciate the need to, for enforcement time to time, I did not want to agree with Dave Thompson with his experience. It is the light touch that has made the difference. There is quite clear behaviour change taking place. I think that most people are now embarrassed when they have to find themselves in a position of asking for a plastic bag, which was not the case before. I certainly feel in that position myself when I am foolish enough to go into a shop without a bag. I was just seeking an assurance from you that the Government's view is still that the best policy is that light touch and that you are seeking behaviour change, and that local authorities will be encouraged to be restrained in their use of the legislation. It is sometimes the further you get from Government, the more confusing the message becomes, and I did not want any authority to feel that they were obliged now to implement those penalties in an enthusiastic way, but they would do so in a very restrained way. That behaviour change, I think, is therefore more likely to be long-lasting in that way. Yes, and I welcome your comments about behaviour change, which, as you said yourself, is the main thruster of those regulations. I think that more of us are embarrassed when we forget to take our bags to the supermarkets or shops. You spoke of your own experience and believe you mean that applies even more so to the Minister responsible for bringing this regulation before Parliament. Sometimes I feel like wearing a disguise when I realise I have forgotten to take my bags to the shops, but that thankfully is a rare occasion these days. Yes, it is about behaviour change and it is making a difference. You are quite right. The light touch approach, as others have said, is the best way forward, clearly for the early stages of the policy. Clearly, if local authorities receive complaints from members of the public who feel strongly that they have been to a shop that is not charging for bags, then local authorities will act upon that to investigate all the evidence at the moment and the approach to it is to give advice. Clearly, as Dave Thompson said, if over and over that advice is ignored, clearly the local authorities may have little option but to take some action. However, to answer your question, I think that the best long-term solution is to continue in that vein. This is not a money-making exercise. It is about raising cash for good causes where bags are sold in the retailers. It is not money that comes to the Government. Likewise, local authorities want to adopt a light touch as well. You will make that clear to each local authority in a gentle but forceful way. Yes, we will continue to work with our local authorities to take a sensible and proportionate approach to that. However, if there are people out there who continually flout and ignore the advice that is given clearly, we would expect local authorities to act on that as well. Thank you, convener. The cabinet secretary will recall that I opposed this measure when it first came in but put forward in mitigation perhaps a hope that I would be proved wrong at the end of the day. The one thing that I would say is that it does not at all surprise me that there has been a huge drop in demand because in other countries where this has been introduced, that has been indeed the case. However, in some countries, and I am thinking particularly of Ireland, over a couple of years, I think that the demand levels rose quite considerably again. I have no problem with what is being put forward in this instrument and I absolutely agree with the continuation of the light touch approach as the right way for it. However, should that demand start to rise again—we all hope that it does not—how do you use the light-touch approach to try to stop that increase in demand? Should that prove to be the case? I think that the previous conversation about the light-touch approach was more to do with compliance, whereas I think that your question might be more to do with if the behaviour change over time is not as positive as it is at the early stages of the policy. Well, hopefully clearly that is not the case. I think that I said to the committee before that we still will keep this under review as the years go by and there are other options to revisit the legislation in terms of the minimum charge in the first place. Should we raise the above five pence in the future if there is less impact of five pence and the kind of materials that the bags are made of or whatever there are other ways in which the policy objectives could be pursued if in time it turns out that we are not achieving what we want to achieve under the existing regulations. Thankfully, that is not the case just now. There is no sign of that just now. You mentioned the experience in Ireland but there are many countries that have put this into place. In the main, I am only aware of positive stories but we will of course keep this under review. It is good to know that from humble backbenchers to cabinet secretaries that we are in touch with the realities of life by doing the shopping or the messages depending on which part of Scotland you come from. That is good to know. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary might have thought about the designated charities that some of the supermarkets have chosen because we raised the question about them being environmentally linked and in some of those announcements they do not seem to be. Many of the charities chosen do have an environmental role to play in our society and communities. You may recall that one of the debates that we had was that some retailers had existing relationships and we did not want to disturb those if they wanted to increase the donations that we are giving to existing recipients as a result of the charge. We did not feel that the regulations should exclude that so therefore we clearly gave an indication and urged within the regulations that good causes should include or could include environmental causes and as I said many retailers I think Tesco for instance are supporting Keep Scotland Beautiful and other retailers as well are supporting environmental causes so there are hopefully millions of pounds that are going to go towards good environmental causes in Scotland that was not there previously. Thank you for that. No further comments just now then. We will move seamlessly on to agenda item three and third item of the agenda today is to consider the motion S4M 12647 asking for the committee to recommend approval of the affirmative instrument single use carrier bags charge fixed penalty notices and amendment Scotland regulations 2015 draft. The motion will be moved and there's an opportunity for formal debate and as you know it's only a matter for the politicians in the committee and the cabinet secretary to speak if need be not officials so I invite the cabinet secretary to speak and move the motion. Well thank you very much for the questions in the committee we're all very very relevant questions and I think it's fair to say I think we all warmly welcome the progress that has been made so far and without further ado I would just say that I'd want to formally move the motion. Are there any members who wish to comment at this stage? There are no members who wish to comment so cabinet secretary any kind of wind up that you feel you have to say? Just to thank the committees for their co-operation. Okay well I put the question on the motion and the question is that motion S4M 12647 in the name of Richard Lochhead be approved are we all agreed? Yes. We are all agreed so we record the result that the committee's report will confirm the outcome of this debate. Thank Richard Lochhead and his official just now. We'll move to subordinate legislation agenda item 4. This is for consideration of the common agriculture policy direct payments etc Scotland regulations 2015 SSI 2015 58 and the committee previously considered this instrument the 4th of March and elected to write the Scottish government on the instrument we now have received that response I refer members to the paper and invite comments from the committee. Members Alec Ferguson. Thank you convener and again can I just thank the cabinet secretary and the governor yes for too late but I wanted to commend the cabinet secretary for the steps that he's taken here in particular to give us the assurance that in introducing a further statutory instrument to sort of correct this error if I could put it that way that no farmers who have taken action so far will be disadvantaged or penalised in any way I think that's the assurance we were all hoping would be there it is there and therefore I am very happy with the changes or the action that's been proposed. Anyone else want to comment? If not then is the committee agreed that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to this instrument we are agreed so there will now be a short suspension to allow witnesses to take their seats for the next agenda item. The fifth item today is the Scottish government's biodiversity strategy and this is a chance for our committee to take oral evidence on the implementation of a Scottish government's strategy. We are joined by a panel of stakeholders and I welcome everyone to the meeting. I'll ask you just to introduce yourself to say who you are not to make a statement about your interests we'll move to the questions and I'm sure that you'll all be able to come in easily by indicating to me and I will keep a list of those who want to speak it doesn't mean you all have to speak on every point because there are only 24 hours in the day but we can go round just now first of all by introducing yourself James Davidson you are. James Davidson I'm the project officer for the Aberdeenshire land use strategy pilot and I work for Aberdeenshire council. Thank you. Sarah Boyack MSP for all the in. Rob Brooker I'm a plant ecologist at the James Hutton Institute. Dave Thompson MSP for Skylach Aberdeenshire and Bidnock or Bannock depends where you come from. Simon Jones I'm a director of conservation at the Scottish wildlife trust. Thank you I'm Archive Executive, Kingram's National Park 30. MSP for a girl in butte. Alex Fawkes MSP for Galloway and West Dumfries. Derek Ropson Tweed Forum working on integrated land and water management projects. Jim Hume MSP for South Scotland. Sue Marr Scottish natural heritage and trends and indicators advice. Angus MacDonald MSP for Falkirk East Chris Nixon environment manager with Forest Enterprise Scotland. Graham Day MSP Angus South I'm the convener Rob Gibson MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. I want to kick off just with a kind of general question because the tenor of discussions about the ability to reach targets and so on in about 2020 is one of I shouldn't say gloom but a degree of concern and you know I would like to see what the panel think about the current work on the biodiversity targets or the challenge that there is in Scotland to meet these. Are we on course to meet our targets and if not why not. Who wants to kick off? Derek Ropson. I think we're probably not on target to reach our biodiversity challenges probably for a number of reasons. We work a lot with farmers and landowners in the borders countryside and we see a lot of real willingness to try and deliver these biodiversity challenges and targets ahead but I think they all feel that incentives are not necessarily there and this needs to be driven by incentivisation as much as anything else so they are really willing and keen to do this biodiversity work but incentives need to need to be there and you need to work in collaboration, the collaboration element of delivery of biodiversity targets in the wider countryside needs to be brought more to the fore and that does depend on having a healthy and efficient and workable advisory service so we do feel that facilitation to help these farmers and land managers work to deliver these targets would be a real boost so incentivisation and advice is a real would be a real boost to delivery respect that the the greening proposals in the cap for example are a major incentive indeed one which is funded they're as good as far as they go but they don't probably go far enough in truth and I think most would recognise that they don't probably not going to deliver a step change for biodiversity that we are really looking for. They are good but we need more of a choice. We'll get some views from around other parts of Scotland as well but Mike Russell wanted to supplement you. I think what we heard from Derek probably gets immediately to the nub of the matter. Incentivisation is all very well but surely there is an imperative for everybody who's involved in working in the environment to ensuring that it continues to exist in the most healthy way possible that's a core part of anybody's business or activity so to expect to be paid on always paid to do the things that you have to do in order to allow you to continue to do them strikes me as it's really quite an important part of this the state will not be able to pay forever for these things to be done but it is important they continue to be done so when do we when do we ingest those as part of our core activity and not expect them to be added on and for something extra to be given for them that's a key issue for me. Yes, Rob Bricker. So there was a very interesting lunchtime seminar in here during Scottish environment week which is about agroecology and looking at the benefits that biodiversity can bring to food production systems and I think what we're starting to do now is see the opportunities that might be brought by integrating biodiversity back into the system so a lot of the intensive management systems maintain food production whilst soil biodiversity for example is in decline but if we're looking at a more variable climate for example moving through time or loss of pollinators from the system as we're seeing in many places at the moment we can start to look at the broader benefits from from biodiversity and agricultural systems and then from that start to calculate how they would offset the potential costs of switching to a more sustainable management opportunity so I think there's a lot of work in that area at the moment perhaps one of the big challenges we have is in linking up the people that need to know the information with the people that are doing those areas of research and trying to implement it so I think that's that's a major challenge at the moment. If we were starting fresh in this matter if we were starting from nowhere there is at least an argument say what we would do is find people for not operating in an environmentally sustainable way now I'm not saying we should do that but you know you could turn this on its head and say arriving from another planet people would think it was rather odd that we were paying people to save the planet where in actual fact we should be trying to stop them from destroying the planet. Well yes you might be able to say that I think that's not unreasonable I think what would come back to you though is the incentive structures which are in place so historically what we've had is systems which are promoted which are highly productive in terms of a single outcome which is food production and we haven't looked more widely at the other benefits that farming can bring and I think there needs to if well part of that step changes is to switch from one way of incentivising people to another way of incentivising people so to look at the broader benefits from the panel and then Alec Ferguson so Grant Boyer and Simon Jones I'm not sure it's just about government incentives and agrarian environment payments things like that I mean I think it's a question of how or what we put our priorities into so if you look at something like peatland restoration in the uplands there's a payoff in terms of that in terms of what you might then have to do through scotch water further downstream in terms of cleaning water etc there's flood benefits there's a whole range of things so it's where we're actually putting money to do what and why so do you build things downstream or do you pay for it in the uplands and I think actually there's some choices that we've got to make as a country as to where you then put your money if you like on those things so it isn't so much about the incentive regime that we have through cap and all the rest of it it's actually about where we all want to put some of infrastructure money where we want to put some of our our other funding into things that you probably put on the softer side than the harder side of engineering such like and I think there's an awful lot more that we could probably do in the uplands there's probably more work if you certainly look in other countries around the world there's some fantastic examples of natural flood management systems where huge amounts of money we're put into the uplands for certain things that have led to great benefits for cities etc further downstream and I think there's probably more work to be done in that in Scotland than where we currently are I think I would agree that incentives aren't the only tool in the armory and obviously regulation has a role to play as well even as best as possible it should be like touch I think to go back to your original question I would agree with Derek that we're probably not on target to hit hit to all the targets I think we've certainly made steps in the right direction and a lot of good work has been focused on the process of the biodiversity strategy and the challenge I think we're now at a point where implementation is really starting to question that's right and I suppose I would make the point that I think underlying this is as well as incentive as well as regulation is is a clear compelling vision is something to allow everybody to be to be crystal clear of where we want to go and that means illustrating a place that Scotland wants to be in relation to its biodiversity I think we have we have good messages in relation to that but I think clarity for for example landowners for local authorities and for stakeholders is really giving them good good illustrations and good comparisons to say this is where we want to move to by by 2020 so I've heard about the vision certainly you're all right with that other members of the panel wish to speak at all but we'll come back to you in a minute because you bravely kicked off a good debate yes Chris Nixon yeah thanks it's just to I guess pick up the point about the kind of focus of work on biodiversity and the integration between different different land uses and neighbors and to focus effort I think there you know there are occasions where work is undertaken for biodiversity and it's you know maybe not in as a well integrated way as it as it could be and that and that leads to a certain level of inefficiency so in terms of the kind of structures that are in place to support the achievement of the goals then then you know encouraging that level of integration I think is important James Davidson I just probably like to highlight perhaps you know there's considerable progress being made I think on achieving biodiversity targets and there are a number of sectors kind of well engaged the public sector are well engaged you know land managers farmers etc are engaged through incentives through rules through through regulation etc the public are perhaps becoming increasingly engaged there's still quite a way to go but but there are our actors kind of missing in the debate really I think and and I think private business while there are many kind of sort of good news stories there's quite a gap there in terms of private business private enterprise you know beyond the land management the primary production sector being involved in this and being aware of their impacts on biodiversity being aware of what they can do to improve biodiversity is locked so I think that's where we need to consider you know further targeted effort and work to see how we can engage them within the process and to unlock you know the good work that they really could do for biodiversity. Sue Martin. Like to comment I think you know we acknowledged in our 2010 report on the state of biodiversity that we have made good progress but nobody hit the 2010 targets of halting biodiversity loss which is a very challenging one. One of the issues we need to address is to move away from looking at individual species and individual habitats and moving towards a sort of joined up ecosystems approach to how we manage our whole countryside and you can see that coming through with the Aberdeen pilot and the land use strategy and these types of works I think Scotland's doing really good work in this direction and would like it to continue really so we're making progress but there's still a lot to do. Okay that's a good start just now I think we've got the context a bit of vision and how we actually articulate that but we also have to recognise probably that there's a wider approach to a systems and ecosystems approach well we'll dig into some of the questions now but before I come to what was our question 2 I think one that follows on is our question 10 which Criam Day is going to ask. Thank you Civir. Good morning to the witnesses. I just wonder if there's a clear enough understanding of where responsibility for delivery on biodiversity actually lies and is mainstreaming of biodiversity throughout Scottish Government departments, local authorities and other public bodies happening to a sufficient degree? I can speak to that in the Cairngorms. In terms of the Kingdoms National Park there's a wide partnership that's behind Cairngorms Nature which covers off that whole range of people involved from public sector, private sector, NGOs etc and they have what we've done is to take the targets from the 2020 strategy and say what are those within the Cairngorms and how are we going to deliver them so I think it is pretty clear as to what we've got to do so as it clears to what we've got to do the bit that we've really got to then say is well how are we going to do that because you know we've got a target of 2,000 hectares of peatland restoration or we've got a target of 5,000 hectares of native woodland expansion so then it's a case of going out talking with people and actually making that happen on the ground and is it that landscape scale side of things but I think in where we've got good spatially defined priorities in parts of Scotland I think it works and I think the land use strategy pilots show that as well that where we've actually taken stuff at a national level and then focus it down and said this is what we've got to do here I think it works where it's more we're just implementing the national targets I think that gets a little bit more tricky so I can only talk about the Cairngorms specifically and lock them in a bit but in terms of those places I think you do have a good way of bringing everyone together and it's potentially a model that can be used in other places it's not just to plug in all the national parks so it's the tweed forum a bit like that we are in a local partnership and then we think we think to deliver biodiversity it needs to run on three levels you've got the ethical and moral argument that we should all be doing this because it's the right thing to do you've got the cross compliance argument the regulatory argument that is in place but you've also got if money is tight and money is is a key objective very often then we do need to start targeting and we are working like Aberdeenshire on the Scottish Borders laundry strategy pilot we have target maps which are indicative of where work could be done so we are thinking that that is probably the best way to go to try and work with partners in these areas to deliver these objectives so we think targeting of resources working in partnerships local forum to deliver these partnerships and maybe ring fencing of budgets regionally so that local priorities can be set so that national targets come down to local targets and delivered locally that that model would probably work better going forward yes Grant Moyer and then Simon Jones you wanted to come in I think yeah just to come back on just to give an example of that in that we've done a lot of work within the park again across the kind of nature partnership which is looking at native woodland expansion on the back of that we've produced targeting maps which then forest commission have used to used to put forward incentives within the park of an extra 10 percent on the payment rates within the park for those places where we want to see native woodland expansion so there's a way of actually if you like using the information we're collected across the partnership to then use that to influence the incentive so I think actually that's been a good use of how public sector is joined up to actually try to deliver the bad diversity targets Simon look Jones thanks convene and I'd agree that delivery is so much it's easy to say it's down to everybody it's all our responsibility and of course it is but I think government and agencies really need to to lead the way and set lead by example I was talking with Chris actually on the way this morning the importance of sort of big data and remote sensing and how in the future if we're talking about biodiversity and natural resources at landscape scale then you really need to see it from an eagle eye view from above and I think an investment a continuation investment in big data and a remote sensing can help really lead the way to provide the data to make the decisions on I think on the ground we would say the sort of the right scale of delivery and responsibility rests at the kind of the catchment scale that that's we believe the planning unit that's that's effective you can look at water quality at a catchment scale and there's lots being achieved there there are management groups you know in the future could such a thing evolve to be land and water management groups operating at a catchment level so you involve whoever you need to involve at local stakeholder and agency and government level within an appropriate scale so I think I think grass roots is is very important but let's look not lose the emphasis that government and agencies need to need to lead the way here with with the approach several people want to come in on this so Rob Brooker first in the sbs refresh the 2020 challenge document a lot of the focus was on picking priority areas for action and getting coordinated work across agencies and that's why the ecosystem health indicators have been developed and one of the explicit things about those is that they are down scalable so that you can focus your activities collectively in certain areas and that's also a large part of the research which is being proposed under the next strategic research programme to develop better indicators for focusing action and also mechanisms for bringing people together to work collectively so that idea of focusing resources and focusing effort on priority areas is is a key part of the existing documentation but also the work that's going to be done moving forward and James Davidson I mean just to pick up on Grant Moyar's point really I mean they have Caring Gorm's nature in north east Scotland we have the north east scotland biodiversity partnership so essentially our local biodiversity action plan process which does a tremendous amount of of good work but I mean in terms of delivery and I believe there's a little bit of a disconnect between kind of the national biodiversity process and local biodiversity action plans now and that relationship needs to be strengthened and a bit more direction coming from from the national process down to the local biodiversity action planning process and to come back to it's Sumaris yes thank you for that it's just in response to that a lot of the reporting mechanisms that we've used up until now have been at the national level because that's what we've got the best data set for but that does make it very difficult to as James says to lead into action on the ground so it's why we're working on trying to develop more smaller resolution indicators the national ecosystem health indicators and other indicators where we're actually looking at a local level so we can actually see what's happening in specific areas to move away from a more general picture across scotland which is a hugely diverse country to actually what we can actually deliver and do on the ground and where we can focus effort are we close to being able to provide a river catchment area for example I think there's still quite a lot of work to do I'm afraid so that's years ahead possible well in terms of producing indicators we're possibly a distance away but I think there's a lot of initiatives around Scotland where people know what's needing to be done so for example like the the land use strategy trials and the national parks these people know what needs to be done I think it's just to follow up on the point about having a good understanding of sites and priorities and certainly on the national forest estate we've undertaken and asked our undertaking quite large survey programmes looking at for instance open habitats and we've also had recently the native woodland survey of Scotland which have produced you know quite significant data sets and information which are then you know extremely valuable extremely useful in targeting efforts so just really to raise that point that there needs to be a you know a fair degree of focus on gathering the information which would enable us to target our efforts effectively that's a lot of information Mike I think I'm gonna leave your question to a little later when we have a bit time to follow up because the next question kind of follows on from this which is basically about the landscape scale projects and their impact on ecological health and the lessons that can be learned from these projects you know there's evidence that projects like this are making a real difference to biodiversity in Scotland I know from the infant status of the call project to my own constituency an ascent living landscape that you know this is a 50-year time horizon is this the kind of thing that's going to be capable of delivering targets but at the same time actually making a difference to biodiversity so who wants to kick off about landscape scale once right, Simon Jones? Convener maybe I'll join because obviously the wildlife trust are main partners in the Koi Gaggan Ascent living landscape to go back to the to the data issue I think we need to be better at data and there's a lot already out there that the local scale what it gives us is how directly that affects people's lives and how they see at a local level how the delivery of 2012 and challenge which means nothing to the residents of Koi Gaggan Ascent obviously they don't give us stuff about it particularly what they want to know is how they might be involved in still economically making a living off the land while not continuing to degrade the ecosystems in the area through through woodland expansion I think the point being it is a slow burner and with the right level of support so for example woodland expansion is a good example in the north in the northwestern Koi Gaggan Ascent how actually targeted resource can make a big difference in quite a small amount of time the process of getting everybody together and building up respect amongst the various stakeholders is the one that takes the longest period of time really in terms of action on the ground there are some quick wins I think in terms of dealing some of the key threats which is part of the messaging that I believe the 2020 challenge needs to be clearer on what are the key threats that we need to overcome if we were to start making significant catchment level biodiversity improvements that's just one area but you know the involvement of the human element in the whole process is the thing that attracts me to the living landscape that it's a landscape in which you need to have humans in order further to be any proper biodiversity so if the communities are fragile the way in which we root use the resources of nature have to be targeted in order to make sure that there will be humans there in the next 50 years to actually take these things forward so you know when you say that people perhaps are not looking initially at what might happen in that time but to be able to continue to make a living there you know is that built into the way in which we see biodiversity at this landscape scale enough for people to feel ownership of it if I could respond to that I I think we needed maybe challenge some of the the wide scale I suppose of management and land use cultures that we have because you know the the successful future particularly of the uplands and the coast is built on successful communities there are resources there that need to be used I suppose what we'd like to see is is a more sympathetic management more rather than mono kind of cultural approaches to forestry to agriculture farming more integration so that there is still a healthy hunting industry there's still a healthy farming but there's much more integration between those things SRDP I think through the process of evolution needs to reflect that and through incentives as we talked about if we want to see the landscape change and still support people and see ecosystem benefits then we need to incentivise a shift a transition in that and the SRDP for example has got I think an important role role to play in that because people will always look for the pound sign connected to any reason why they should change their current activity trawler fishermen creel fishermen foresters hunters are a good example sumard I'm going to say follows on directly from what you said yourself and that was the one of the advantages of the ecosystems approach is that it puts people very much within as part of the environment rather than having humans and the environment as separate entities and it acknowledges that we are part of the process and one of the things I think we really need to do when we're working with these landscape scale projects is we really need to bring people members of the public on board with us and communicate why is it important that farmland waders are going down why does it matter to individuals and sort of going back to your discussion about polythene bags it's almost about it's about bringing around behavioural change and getting people to understand that not understand but take the time to acknowledge that by looking after their environment they're also looking after themselves and their future creme day wanted a supplementary in that point just to pick up on that of course the thing about carrier bags is people are now being charged for carrier bags which perhaps goes back to Mike Russell's earlier point and when Simon Jones talked about the pound sign coming into play wouldn't it come into play in the form of penalties for people who didn't do the right things in terms of biodiversity personally I still think the regulation should be should be light touch I think you have to you reach a point where penalties are useful but in some respects you've kind of lost the argument already at that point if people don't understand the real value of natural capital then clearly they still haven't got it and we're not doing a good enough job of telling them about the importance of natural capital so penalties I think come come later but it's you know it's an educational process and I think soo makes a good point that I would say the sensible unit for engaging with local people and why it matters to them is still the local catchment whether it be the deer management group or the local village or the living landscape because then it really matters to those people who might not be interested in government strategy grant lawyer I mean I think this is fairly crucial to all this I mean my general feeling is that over the past 20 years we've reached a point where we've got a lot of the low-hanging fruit associated by diversity and we've done a lot of good work on the fringes of a lot of these big issues and if we're going to meet the targets that are set for us in the 2020 challenge and and beyond and on these long-term 50-year time horizons actually we get into the really tricky issues the ones that we've all talked about for many years but haven't quite nailed so things like deer management things like upland gross management things like where does development go dad there's a whole range of things which how do we integrate agriculture and forestry because we talk about it and we continue to to talk about it and we all think it's a good idea but we continue to struggle to do so and I think that's where the real big gains and it is at a landscape scale and it is about involving people but it's actually about tackling some of these really big tricky issues which when you look at the priorities and where people have their businesses and how they're set up will mean change which not necessarily they will want to do so there is a whole question of if people don't want to do it and it's not being led through incentives how do you make it happen and I think there are some some pretty tricky questions for government for NGOs for us all about what are the things that you actually have to put in place and I agree it is about trying to get people to convince people to actually do it but there is a point of saying well if they're not how do you move on from that I'm a voluntary carbon audit on farms if necessary to a compulsory one you know which has been kind of agreed in this round of cap so we are in a process of saying we're going to have to move in that direction in order to deal with the carbon output and therefore you know in terms of landscape use whether it's farming forestry we need to probably be moving a bit in that direction incentives are one side of it but you know there are imperatives about the climate for example and biodiversity these are objective factors that we need to take into account so Derek wants to speak and then Chris and then Rob and then that order right thank you mr convener I just want to come back to your point about bringing people with you on this process that biodiversity is as much about habitat management and species management which really it's about people management as well people have to come along on this journey and through the land use strategy pilot that we've been working with on with Dundee University and Scottish Borders Council we've been going into the subcatchments of the river tweed up some of these valleys and sitting down with the farmers and the wider stakeholders wider communities we've been really encouraged about speaking to them about their problems and their issues about the challenges and opportunities going forward for land use in these valleys so it is fundamental to get people on board with this because the solutions will come from the ground up because these are the people that are living and working and having to deal with land use in these valleys and forestry farming conservation all these challenges all these drivers have to be the solutions have to almost be found locally and worked on locally but the incentives have to come from above the mechanisms have to come from above but delivery has to come from the local from the local areas and the solutions are there but incentives have to be there to follow them through First and then Rob Yeah I just wanted really to support that point and just to raise the issue of co-ordination and also timing of action in engaging people and an example which we're heavily involved in again on the national forestry state is road to dendron control as an invasive species and that's a good example where we have a large programme on the national forestry state and there are large large programmes happening elsewhere but if it's not co-ordinated and timed in a way which avoids reinvasion of road to dendron just as an example then a lot of the a lot of the effort is lost because it's not well co-ordinated and I think in engaging people on a landscape level then co-ordinating effort and timing of effort can be can be very important. Yes who's monitoring fires of road to dendron clearance in some parts of my west coast constituency at the moment would be a very interesting question. Anyway we've got Rob first of all and then James. I just I think from a research perspective we're in a much better place than we were maybe four or five years ago with respect to handling some of these issues because the focus on the ecosystem approach has made a whole range of different research areas come together so ecologists are working with environmental economists and social scientists we have a much better understanding of the wide breadth of benefits that we get from natural capital in the environment but also the challenges with respect to managing those things and we we're starting to view the systems ecologists would see them as collections of organisms but now we're what we call join socio-ecological systems so people are part of the environment and that's that's the key thing we know this is key we know this is key to the management discussions. Now our challenge is to continue these discussions the land units pilots have been brilliant in terms of bringing a whole suite of people together including researchers to talk to land managers and look for ways forwards. I'd share the science and technical group for the SBS and we run a biodiversity science conference and one of the things that comes back in terms of the feedback from that is it's one of the few fora for land managers and policy people and researchers to all get together it's almost less about the presentations and more about the networking opportunities and that I think is where we could benefit a centre of expertise on ecosystems for example could be that forum for bringing people together and we have we're developing techniques such as in conservation conflict resolution where we are developing ways to get everybody in a room to talk together to try and find a way forward in terms of managing the environment that benefits those people that have to live in that environment so I think we're in we're in a good place from a research point of view the key thing now is making the links between the different people that need help and information. How does that relate to community planning partnerships? I think we need well for example from the point of view for the ecologists we need to make better connections to the planners so I think the land-use pilots have been a great opportunity to do that and to test that out and so for example part of the work that's proposed for the next strategic research programme is about biodiversity offsetting and that's clearly going to have to link through to the planning system so that's an area where we need to develop better communications and understand the problems better. James Davidson, you're involved in Aberdeenshire perhaps in this interface? You're right. I just wanted to kind of make the point really and kind of observe that those kind of harder to reach fruit that Grant kind of outlined you know renewables, upland management, integration of forestry and farming kind of where the work of the pilots in a lot of ways those challenging rural land management issues and I'm not going to pretend we've come up with all the answers and I don't think Derek would either but I think what we found is that there's a really strong appetite for integration out there genuinely you know people assume there's kind of hostility between these different sectoral interests but there genuinely is an appetite for integration and we found that there can be real benefits in pursuing this and I think there's also real benefits in us getting a bit more explicit kind of spatially about where we expect things to happen, where things can happen that are going to deliver maximum benefit and where if things happen in certain areas it would deliver disbenefits and we've started that in both the land use strategy pilot areas and I think that's really a direction we need to pursue. You mentioned community planning and I'm kind of moving on here a little bit in a sense but it's something we've had a little bit of involved in with the pilots but we kind of note that their eye on the environment is not as great as it might be. I think in terms of indicators that community planning use, their indicators are social, they're economic, they're not quite so focused on environmental indicators and there is I think an open door there and we're starting to pursue an Aberdeenshire to try and get them to have a greater eye on environmental issues along with the very important social and economic ones they have to deal with. That's interesting and looked at in historical sense. It's understandable why that went off beam when community planning partnerships are set up as they were but I'll not go into that just now. I will create length on another point but Sarah Boyack wants to come in just at this moment. There's a few things that have been said about the local and getting the scale right and getting people to either network or to commit to or understand what we need to do to deliver biodiversity. We've got biodiversity action plans with most local authorities but not all, I think 25. You've got two pilots that have been done that have come up with good ideas and then you've got local authority development plans. We have got lots of different tools that potentially address some of the problems that have been identified here in terms of habitat loss or development that's inappropriate. Who should be the key player in terms of leading that stuff? It comes back a few times about who's meant to be pushing for this. Do the pilots tell us what you would need to do to make this work and how much does it cost to make us do it? We have ideas, I think, as you say. The interesting thing about the pilots is that it's been a really broad church in terms of its involvement and so in many ways it's quite difficult for us to push a single kind of idea forward because we represent such a diverse view but I think what we have found is that we do have these mechanisms in place. You mentioned local development planning, strategic development planning on a wider scale. We've got L-Baps but our focus was rural land management very explicitly. I still believe that there is a gap there in terms of oversight across the rural land management piece, a forum for people to come together to discuss the issues and for some sort of directionality to be given and what the pilots have done is try to create something very high level. That process is like local development planning, L-Bap, catchment management planning, natural flood management planning, forestry planning, can grab hold of and say, okay, well, this looks like it's a priority, this looks like it would be undesirable and move forward from there so that there's still a gap, I think, for something overarching. Simon Lott-Jones, and then Dave Thomson is going to take questions forward. Thanks, convener. Apologies, I feel like. I've been talking a lot.  I think we've hit the nail on the head really with talking about a local level, what's the cost of making these changes? What's the real situation of this transition to something different, which is what we want, and I'd argue we're really aren't going to make big steps in ecosystem restoration unless we address some of the big key threats, as Grant said. I mean, really, you know, we're talking about mureburn, grouse management as it currently exists, the threat of deer. Unless you fundamentally find a way of dealing with these big, big threats, certainly in the uplands, then you're not going to make big, big changes in the ecosystem. So if you decide, okay, then well, what do we want in those areas in the future? Get back to this compelling vision, then through policy and through natural capital valuation and through regulation, it's about that process of transition from where we are now to where we want to be in the future. And I think the pilots have been useful for that and the living landscapes and futurescapes are useful for that. But I think it's about driving forward that the current status quo is not going to keep our biodiversity and ecosystems in good enough state. We need to transition to a different way in many areas. Sumar? I was just reflecting when people were speaking, and you can ask how much these processes cost to put in place, but if you've got unintegrated land management—for example, an easy example is lowland flooding, because your uplands aren't in good condition—how much is it costing us not to do this kind of work? I think that that might be a more challenging question, because I think it's going to cost to do stuff, but there's also a cost of not doing stuff, and I think that that's really quite important nettle to grasp. I think that we'll take this forward a little bit just now, so that we will look at some of the details of upland management and so on later, but I think that Dave Thompson wants to try and, in fact, take up a point that Rob Brooker raised. Thank you, convener. It's been very interesting listening to this discussion, and we do want you here to talk, Simon. The more you talk, the better, I think. However, talking about how we deal with this, Simon mentioned local action and so on, but really what we've been talking about up until now are crofts, ffarns, estates, and how we deal with these and local there. However, if you actually look really local, if we're going to deal with diversity, if you look at the graph in terms of the natural capital asset index, back in 1950, one year after I was born, it was very high, and it has halved up until 2010. I'd be interested, first of all, to know if that has improved since 2010, because that was five years ago, so I don't know if Rob or anyone else can help us with that. That's the first point, but the second point, and maybe a more important one, is that I was born in a house in Lossymouth in Murray Street, which had a bit of ground behind it, and this was planned by the burgers of Elgin when they built this new part of Lossymouth, 60 feet wide and 180 feet back to the next street, and every house in that area was exactly the same. It was done quite deliberately. That was to allow people to grow their own food, to keep chickens and all the rest of it. Our garden was full. My father was a baker. He would start at three in the morning. He would come home midday, have a wee snooze, and he'd go out in the afternoon and evening, and he'd work his garden, and he would grow lots of stuff. As did many of our neighbours. That would have added considerably to the high natural capital value in 1950, because lots of people, individuals were doing that. It wasn't just farmers and crofters and estate owners that were doing it, so we need to try to get back to have that kind of effect again. The way to do it, and it's something that I would value comment on, is to get youngsters interested in gardening and horticulture at an early age. This is a real problem at the moment. There's a fantastic little unit in Lochaber, the rural educational trust, run by Isabel and Linda Campbell, out at Anarchmore. They take youngsters out, take schools out and get them interested in growing things and animals and all the rest of it. That little charitable organisation struggles to get any kind of funding. We've been trying to help them, but we just can't source funding. If they don't get funding, they'll close down. My way of thinking is that there's lots of money out there, and SRDP and all that, and maybe it's not as much as everyone would like, and we know there's big cuts and everything. Why aren't we diverting some of the funds down to the rural education trust in Lochaber, to schools that encourage youngsters to grow? If you could get people back to growing their own, even if it was only hobby, to get a better quality of veg or whatever, you would have a massive army of people all across the country, and they would add to the natural capital asset of the country. It's really to get views of the panellists, and maybe you're at a different level, and you haven't really thought about this micro level, but I would appreciate your views and comment on whether things have improved or got worse since 2010. With respect to the natural capital asset index, I must admit that I'm looking over your shoulder at the graph, but it comes down from about 1.8 to 100, so it drops by about the fifth. My understanding is that, since that calculation was done, it's relatively stable, although there's going to be a revised version of the NCII out this year, which will pull in new data, so it'll be more robust. I think it's stable at the moment. To go on to the issue of connecting kids with their environment through, for example, gardening, what we're seeing with the expansion of our thinking by taking an ecosystem approach is the importance of urban areas for a whole range of things. If you look at pollinators, for example, the evidence is that in some systems, it's the urban system that supports pollinated populations with crops, which is amazing. It's the pollinators that come out of the city into the surrounding countryside, which are keeping those crops pollinated now because of the impact that we've had. It's partially about the benefits for the people living in those areas, but also for the wider environment as well. I think there's more we could do, for example, in getting biodiversity into green space. Green space work is often just about green space, but it could be about biodiversity as well. We're learning more about the health benefits of having green space and having biodiversity in our cities. If we look at cultural ecosystem services, we know now that those are delivered by the interaction of people in their environment, and they're so important around big urban areas. It's critical that we start making this link. That may ultimately lead to wider support for biodiversity conservation throughout the Scottish environment. I completely agree. I'm going to talk to kids and enthuse them. Would you be in favour of some of the finance being pushed down to that lower level? I know that it's very limited at the moment, and people might want that, but would that be a good thing for Government to consider? That's not really my area of expertise. I mean, personally, just as a personal opinion, I mean, I think it would be great if you were supporting things which gave a chance for kids to connect to their environment and care about it. Gardening is a great way of doing it. I'm going into a school. It's Science Week this week, so I'm going into a primary school on Friday to talk to them about how you measure ecology in the environment and just try to get some enthusiasm. It's all around them, but some of them just don't see it. It's amazing. I hope that we better substitute certain chemicals that people used in 1950 in their gardens nowadays. I saw Derek nodding his head. Do you agree with that? Derek is just going to speak anyway, yes. Yeah, I'd like to back up your point there, Dave. I think it's fundamental. I can't say what's happened since 2010, but almost certainly over the last two generations. The urban community and the children have lost touch with the environment, and what we're finding in the borders is even our small towns in these schools. They are now beginning to lose touch with the countryside, and even the countryside kids are losing touch with the countryside. So we've really got to start investing in our children, in our children's education, of how the land functions and how wildlife is involved in that, and how land use is involved in that. So there's a huge educational role needed, so I would echo your point and welcome funding down that road very much. I often come to things and people talk about the disconnect between young people and the environment. Often, something feels a bit like doom and gloom, but there's also an awful lot of young folk out there who are incredibly connected to the environment, and there's also an awful lot of good work being done. Of course, there are huge amounts of organisations in terms of the caring government. Obviously, we've run through the John Muir award now. Next coming year, we'll put through our 25,000th child through that, which is a quarter of all the awards in Scotland, just as an example. I mean, I know Forestry commissioners have got their schools. Every school in the National Park gets visited and has educational things. We do lots of work with outreach side of things. How do you think that there's a huge amount going on? Now, is it as well-coordinated as it should be? There's possibly work to be done there to make sure that we actually get that spread across all of Scotland, and our urban area is absolutely important, absolutely, in terms of that. But I do think that we sometimes—it's that classic thing of saying, yes, children are disconnected and we need to do something about that. Actually, an awful lot of folk are incredibly connected and have an awful lot of opinions about climate change and things that would probably put a lot of us to shame. So, I mean, I suspect there's probably more out there in terms of people's understanding of biodiversity at a school level than we actually sometimes like to say. Yes, Sue Mars. Come in and say one thing about—one thing that we find very challenging is actually being able to assess the quality of green space within our cities and towns. It's very important that we have green space, and we've got some really good maps of the extent of the green space area, but the actual quality of that for biodiversity, that's quite a tricky nut to crack, and we'd love to be able to have more information on that. If we can get people to produce gardens of flowers rather than gravel and proper grass instead of manicured lawns, I'm in danger of becoming a hobby horse here, but to get people to accept that nature is messy, because that is the first contact that people have with nature as children. It's where we get most of our contact in our daily lives, so I think that the urban green space environment is a critical thing for us to think about. Before I bring in Mike, Simon Jones and— I agree with that. I have a couple of points to make, Fina, just to go back to the quality of urban green space, and I think that this is why the need to roll out ecosystem health indicators, which at an urban level are really challenging, but we need to crack on with this. They've been floating around for a couple of years now. We need a unit so that we can understand, let's say, the catchment scale at whether it be a city, so we know what we're measuring, so we know what change we want to make, and I think that the ecosystem health agenda is that. Just back to the education point, and I'm very mindful that I'm Mike Russell in terms of some of our previous experience together with beavers in education. I've got two young daughters, one at primary school and one at high school, and I'd agree with Grant. I don't need to worry about them in terms of their enthusiasm and their general understanding of their impact on the planet, but I'm constantly frustrated by the education system that locks them inside and doesn't get them out enough to get hands on and get dirty and make it a real connection. Like it or not, more of us now live in cities than in the urban area, so even if be a lot, we have to face the fact that it's going to become harder and harder for children to be really practically engaged with land management if it's not sufficiently built in to every day they get outside and they learn something outside, ideally we're getting their hands dirty. I don't see the problem with my children, I see the problem with their teachers who don't want to get outside and get wet and dirty. That's a very personal experience though. I'm sure there's a supplementary or separate question. Right, okay, and then back to Dave. I suppose I'd be very struck by what Dave said. I suppose if I were to, if I would have regression therapy, I would get to the stage. I remember watching Sycamore Trees outside the house that I lived in being cut down when I was a very young child because the council had decreed they should go because they were unsafe for traffic management and I suppose that inculcated in me a particular love of trees which I've never got over, which happily I became forestry minister at one stage to allow me to do it. But the point you make about contact, children's contact with the environment and with biodiversity is a very important one. The picture is not gloomy really. I mean I've been to a forest school in townhead primary in Glasgow, in the centre of Glasgow, where the forest school activity was undertaken in townhead park and it was wonderful. We have a higher proportion of eco schools in Scotland and almost any other country in Europe, and biodiversity is part of that. The experience is varied, but biodiversity is part of that. The question is, is it becoming a mainstream part of our education or not? And if it's not becoming a mainstream part of our education, how should we make it that? There are outdoor nurseries, for example, which is a whole work of the nurseries. Outdoor and eye for wild was supporting and we continue to support outdoor primaries, where primary 1 and 2 is also delivered out of doors. But I think that for this committee the issue is, is there a structure that is in place that allows the environmental experience to be mainstreamed and does biodiversity get into that? We might want to consider that when we look at the Government's biodiversity plan to make sure that education and the involvement of children is part of it. Dave Thomson, to sum up. Thank you, convener. I very much support what Mike Russell has just said. One of the difficulties in the urban situation is that we have created a situation in this country where a home is an asset that you gamble with, that you invest in, rather than a home being a home. Therefore, that has pushed up land values and, of course, there are other reasons as well that we get that through planning and through people land banking and people holding on to big bits of ground. I mean, there's no shortage of land in the highlands, but land values are massive. Therefore, you get a situation where a builder will get a plot of land, he'll shove 20 houses into it and with a garden the size of a postage stamp. So even if the people wanted to actually grow their own, they can't, because the cost of that land in relation to the cost of housing pushed up by the sort of way that our society has developed over the last 20, 30 years, where, as I say, a house is an investment, it's not a home, it doesn't actually help. Now, there are obviously ways that that could be dealt with, but probably not within the committee here to delve into all of that, but that also makes it more difficult because these days you're not going to get a house like the house that I was born in with 60 by 180 feet bit of ground to allow you to do your own unless you buy a crofter or whatever. And, of course, the planning system stops farmers in places like Glenarchart and others giving a bit of land to a youngster to build a house because they want all the houses clumped together down in Drunadrochett. So there's lots of things here that militate against better use of land from an environmental and a biodiversity point of view. Yes, we're talking about these things continually in the community empowerment bill and also in the land reform consultation and bill that's coming forward, so they are and there are a part of, very much a part of this. And talking about land at great prices owned by a few people, we move on to invasive non-native species. Yes, and the issue of disease because I think they are, whilst they are a bit of the gloomy story that you were talking about, they are important issues. In terms of non-native species, I'm aware, for example, the work that Tweed has been done on the Tweed, there is considerable work that requires to be done in Lloquen still with and surrounding waters and many of us who have struggled with that issue for some years believe that the time has come for fairly dramatic action. I'd want people on the panel to address if they could two issues. One is, is this still a priority or is it something that we simply have to be more relaxed about because they are here to stay and there's not much we can do about them and some of the definitions can be curious. Secondly, on the issue of disease, how we can also cope with climate change and the importation of disease, and I think in forestry terms probably there's more experience of that now than there is elsewhere and what might lie ahead. I'd be interested in views from the panel. Chris Nixon, do you want to start off? Yes. Just on the invasive species, I mentioned our work on Rhododendron as one example and I think that that's a good example of that type in that there's a huge area we've now identified in almost 30,000 hectares of Rhododendron-dominated woodland on the national forest estate, so that's obviously having a huge impact on biodiversity in its way and particularly the condition of native woodlands. We have a large programme of treatment and we've treated now almost just over a third of that, about just over 10,000 hectares. It's a large programme, a lot of effort's going into it and it's just the sheer scale of it which I think indicates the seriousness of the issue that if we were to retract from it then there would be serious implications for the biodiversity and the status of our not just designated sites but in general biodiversity in general. It's a very serious issue and one that we need to maintain a very strong focus on. In terms of the forest health or tree health, in a way I think one of the key things there is being able to monitor and react to emerging threats, new and emerging threats and I think that's an area where a focus is required both in terms of work at ports and in terms of import controls and ensuring that there's effective hygiene but also in the forest and maintaining a vigilance and an ability to assess and act when new or emerging threats come about. Scale mapping and surveying activities, I'm thinking that even Edinburgh company, a new Edinburgh company called Intelligent Solutions is doing it by satellite, seem to provide some solutions for at least monitoring the spread of disease. I don't think that the commission is yet using those, is that actively under consideration? It is being pursued and one of the questions there is access to sufficient data and the resources to put in place the programme for instance for LIDAR data which would allow a potentially allow forest and other habitat condition to be monitored over time on a broad scale. So there's an issue of investment in the programme of remote sensing. There are satellite passes which give publicly available information on a weekly or 10-day basis at which you can build up a very interesting picture of change quite quickly although the data processing is enormous. But some of that pioneering work is being done in Edinburgh and the commission probably should show an interest in it. We are showing an interest in respect to the national forest inventory and the way that's taken forward in the future so I would agree with you that it's certainly an area for that continuing investigation of the potential of the use of that kind of data. I was wondering about the tweed experience because you had some successful experience in what appeared to be a hopeless case. Tweed Forum's been working over the last 15 years with landowners and farmers to tackle giant hogweed control and Japanese nutweed control. 15 years ago it was rife on the whole river system and now you'd be hard pressed to find a decent patch of nutweed or hogweed anywhere. It is there but it's in very small patches but it is important to continue that, having made those gains to continue it going and keeping top of it. That does require a very much of co-ordinated approach. Going forward, the only realistic way of doing that is to encourage farmers and landowners to do it themselves in their own patch of land but another area is to get SRDP funding to put collaborative bids in to tackle it across the wider catchment. That does require on-going funding, on-going maintenance, on-going co-ordination, on-going facilitation but we do feel it's fundamental having made these huge gains because if we take the foot off the pedal it will come back again. Chris Nixon, first of all. I was just very quickly to agree very strongly with Derek there that co-ordinated effort is absolutely crucial to avoid circumstances where what can be a considerable effort and expense is put in to control some of these invasive species and then the effort maybe doesn't quite come to nothing but it's certainly negated by a spread from neighbouring land where those kind of operations aren't being undertaken. Just before we come on to Alec Ferguson, we should go to Robb first and then Grant. One are invasive non-native superiority. If you look at the impact they can have in some areas they really do need to be. You look at mink impacts on waterfall populations in the highlands but I think it's another great example of how a co-ordinated approach involving land managers and researchers in the general public can really have a positive benefit so that's a great example of citizen science and people have learned so much about ecology from participating in that mink control programme. In terms of dealing with diseases and pests coming into the system I think it emphasises the need to keep a flexible research base so what recently I was involved in a piece of work for JNCC where we looked at the potential consequences of ash dieback because we had a team of researchers in place at that time we could very quickly get a response out in terms of what the likely ecological consequences are so I think that's that's important another piece of research that's related to disease influx is work on integrated pest management and we're starting to learn the importance again there of maintaining biodiversity and production systems be it forestry systems or crop systems keeping that diversity in not just in terms of the kind of crop but also the genetic diversity of the crop itself can have really major benefits in terms of controlling disease spread through these systems and we're starting to understand that a lot better so we do have new knowledge that will help us cope with these diseases that are coming through climate change but maintaining a flexible research base that can respond quickly and help with monitoring as well I think is critical. Simon Jones and then I think another supplementary on this. I'll be brief on this one which is I mean I think that it's an incredibly important issue invasive non-native species the bit that I think is most tricky is the ongoing funding in that how much is that and how do you keep on going how do you you know if you scale up something like what's happening at the tweed forum and then you start looking at all the different non-native species we have to deal with across a huge range of different areas and different things the bill for okay you might be able to get the money to start to do the things but the bill for ongoing to make sure that it doesn't come back or that it's kept in check keeps on keeps on going and it doesn't disappear in the future it keeps on going so how do you afford that and I think that that's a pretty tricky one actually for the invasive side of things and again I don't think we've quite cracked how we do that and I think we've got to have a good think about that before we continue on with some of those and I think there's I suppose it's a bit of a triash system isn't it there's some things you're going to live with you're just going to accept in the system there's some things you want to keep as where they are at the moment and so you're going to have to invest money to try and keep them and some things you're going to have to try and eradicate because they've just arrived and there's worthwhile doing that and I think you've got to be pretty practical about it I do think there's a huge one thing that I would say is that of all the things in biodiversity that I think it's actually relatively easy to get communities and volunteers involved in invasive species is actually one that people genuinely want to get rid of in their local communities and where it's worked well there's been some really good volunteer programs to eradicate stuff but I do think the on-going funding issue of how you do this in the long term you cannae just keep on putting money into the system into into advantage or a business for the community I mean we Alec and I had a great effort on crayfish at one stage and it could have been a resource to the community and it was rather difficult to persuade a number of people it should be on Rhododendron there are some interesting projects where the wood is being used for a variety of purposes including for making into a biofuel now if that is a possibility then you get a virtuous circle I'm not sure what you can do with giant hogweed but presumably the the intelligence and inventiveness of man and woman will produce some result at some stage but it is trying to do that in some way because I entirely agree I don't think it is sustainable in every sense the word to go on culling Rhododendron in Argyll and Bute I mean I think you could spend your entire life and it would be the task of Sisyphus you would not succeed we've got Simon Jones and Suve wanted to come in on that as well try and draw this but yes to follow on from Grant and I saw somebody who overseas saving Scotland's red squirrel project I'm aware of what a an ongoing battle that that can be but how important that is to the people of Scotland really and the business of Scotland but I will kind of go out on a limb here and and say undoubtedly certain key invasive species or key threats and again I think that's still best astide at a catchment level as to where you put your resources in I still would not prioritise it above things which I think are more important for example national ecological networks I think if it's a matter of hard decisions about money then I think at local levels invasive non-natives is very important but if you think about your overall resource and the restoration of ecosystems on a much bigger scale and more more connected there's you know in some instances you can spread a problem invasive non-natives but ultimately if you're increasing habitat and ecosystem health then you have a greater ability to dilute problems as well if you target target action so I'd maybe slightly differ from from people but if you have to make hard decisions I think there are other things within the the challenge that probably sit as being more important than invasive non-natives I'm sure my members will thank me for saying that I was on a comment on reporting progress for tackling invasive non-native species which we do think are very important to maintain and keep under control SNH and one of the ecosystem health indicators we're looking at is looking at data on distribution of various species and then being able to chart that over time and make that available on the Scottish environment website and so you can get us an interactive display of the change in numbers and species of invasive non-natives and what that can possibly help in is where you have this issue where one area focuses their effort on eradicating a species and the guys around the corner don't you are probably not it's not good spending money because by the very nature the invasive species just come back and so by using this kind of approach hopefully we'll be able to see where the areas that we need to target and encourage to get on board and get rid of some of these invasive non-native species hopefully we'll be able to have the tools to do that kind of work and I think another really important thing is that we need to be aware of new species on the horizon and you know what makes an invasive non-native species invasive well we just need to watch out and see what's there because yeah just before you get it I like ferguson had his hand up for a while thanks convener and I might rustle mention Loch Kenne and I'm afraid you can't mention Loch Kenne without my wishing to say something about it because it's right virtually next door to where I live never mind right in the middle of my constituency but we have a particular issue there with American signal crayfish and I'll just to follow on from what Simon Jones was saying in terms of national priorities as opposed to local priorities in Loch Kenne we have an ecosystem that's been totally destroyed totally destroyed there is no ecosystem left it's been eaten bored into by this invasive species to which for the best will in the world the the response of the snh which is the overarching body that can do something about this is to if I can simplify it and parody the situation slightly issue leaflets to course fishermen who are visiting to ask them to make sure they wash their gear before they go home that will work because there are less and less course fishermen coming all the time because there's less and less course for us to catch because the ecosystem that sustains them has been destroyed it is just an example of a now that problem is going to get worse and worse and worse and eventually there will come a day if this is how this is pursued there will come a day when American signal crayfish can't be called invasive anymore or indeed alien because they're going to be in every waterway in Scotland and they will have they will become a natural species rather like they are now south of the border I believe and I can understand all sorts of reasons for not issuing commercial licenses but you have a community around that lock communities which have a 100% desire to get rid of these things there could have been some sort of commercialisation. Mike Russell has a minister very bravely explored some of those possibilities and one or two of his civil servants even more bravely tried to question some of his decisions I seem to remember which was an extremely interesting experience but I simply put that forward convener and thank you for allowing me to do so as an example of the conflicts and the dilemmas that we have in this whole area of discussion I think there are huge local issues and I accept them currently that is not a national priority but I would argue unless you address the local issues and try and nip some of these things in the bud you're going to end up with a national problem. The last two comments really about local and national and sumar as you just mentioned the SNH biodiversity report card can you say a little bit more about that in terms of how you see it being rolled out you say it's going to be on the web is to get a sense of is it national or local and then get some feedback from the other participants as to how useful they see that potential report card. The bit of work I referred to was a set of ecosystem health indicators which will be rolled out on a national scale on the web. The biodiversity report card is a slightly different issue but they're related and what we plan to do with the biodiversity report card is that annually leading up to 2020 is report on our progress against each of the 20 HE targets to see how well we're getting on and we plan to produce that in November each year and the format we're thinking of delivering that with is a two to four page summary document saying where we're doing well where we could do better and that to be backed up with a more robust referenced report so that people can see where we're getting the information from. It's not going to be based on opinion it's going to be based on evidence from scientific literature SNH commissioned research reports work that's going on around Scotland and each year we will build up our evidence base and hopefully the report itself will allow us to target what action we need to do and we'll also by the point we come to reporting for 2020 we'll actually have a very good understanding of what we've been doing to reach these 20 HE targets and the work's being delivered with the support from the science and technical group from the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Ecosystem health indicators the ecosystem health indicators will be we will draw on the information that they contain to inform that report just that that's one of the things that's come out today has been really important to not just have the headline by diversity ambition but to make it work and ecosystem level so that people can see how they relate. That's a bit to snow because Chris Nixon wants to see something then James. Chris Nixon. Thank you and it was just a sort of comment that I guess one thing that we're all wrestling with to some extent is is the terminology around the sort of concepts of natural capital and ecosystem services I think and how biodiversity per se fits into that kind of broader consideration and I think in terms of reporting and reporting in the future on achievements or the condition of the environment then I think there's a task for us all really to try and work on those concepts and try to inject some clarity about the way those things are reported because you see very often different interpretations of natural capital and ecosystem services and I think there's a sort of job to do to create a common recognised language around those things that will lead to more clarity in reporting. I mean it's great to hear the development of sort of these indicators for ecosystem health and further development of the biodiversity indicators. I just kind of want to reflect on the experience of the Aberdeenshire pilot in terms of you know we had to kind of build up a picture of the state of our area and we had to do that kind of very rapidly admittedly with extensive help from the James Hutton Institute but we kind of had to muddle through in a sense there wasn't anything kind of readily available that we could grab onto and say within Aberdeenshire you know ecosystems are in this state biodiversity is in this state there's a number of national measures and I realise we're a bit away from having that kind of information available but it's really a plea for that information to be made available and to be made disaggregatable into regional or catchments or whatever scale we want to do this at because you know how are we meant to kind of assess what are the priorities what are the key issues where should we be targeting effort and measures without that information being available if that had been available both Derek and my jobs would have been quite easier I have to say so it's a plea really for that. Other points on what Sarah has asked yes Rob. So I think it comes back to the question of terminology about ecosystem services in natural capital I think there's been a lot of thinking about that over the last few years and there's some very good documents out there in terms of trying to set out all the different uses of the terminology and perhaps the most useful uses of the terminology but it comes back down to this issue of making sure that the right information gets to the right people and to have some kind of forum where we're all working together using the same the same terminology that makes life so much easier and having clarified I think in many cases what we mean by these terms now we're in a position to start developing indicators which are relevant to them so cultural services I think for many of us three or four years back were a bit of a mystery but they're such a key part of what people get from their environment now we have a much better idea of how we might be able to measure them and from that we can start developing indicators and it comes back to the ecosystem health indicators one of the key criteria for including new data sets in that is the fact that they can be down scale to a catchment level so we're always thinking about how we can get this targeted work in there so again we're in a good place we just need to make sure the information moves around to the right people. Grant Hoyer. Very quick point which is I mean I agree that indicators data monitoring language is all important I do worry sometimes that that's what we end up concentrating on and that we that there is a lot of data out there if you ask most people what the main issues are in the area they'll be able to tell you pretty quickly if I was to say what are the main issues in the county gardens I could list them often two seconds flat I'm sure everyone can do that for the areas as well we need to get on with the action and yes we need to measure the implementation and yes we need to have the right indicators but we do tend to have an industry around that and I am interested in getting practical action on the ground so I think that that's where I want to make sure that by 2020 we're meeting those targets yes that we measure everything but not that we measure everything and then go have we done anything yet and we're at 2020 so um I suppose that's my way around of looking at it. Rob's observation about our scalability the very fact that for the ecosystem health indicators we are looking to scale from the national down to the local means that we've actually got a very limited number of data sets to play with which is unfortunate and I entirely support of what Grant said is that we shouldn't have the ambition for this kind of data set stopping us taking action on the ground. I think we shall be coming to a bit of that yes Simon Jones. Quick points I in relation to data and I there is a lot out there it's complex importantly we're now you know we're realising that effectively what might have been one point was put aside as biodiversity data actually is economically and socially important so there's this kind of cross-referencing that's really important particularly when you're at a local level and you're trying to pick it apart but you know a reduction in ecosystem health is actually we know now having an economic consequence. In terms of action it's interesting that just last week I found out that the French government are tabling a new biodiversity law where they're going to be introducing priority zones to protect areas where species are at risk and ecological corridors at a national extent and in their international territories as well which is apparently due to the formation of a new agency. Frankly I think it's that kind of action and that kind of statement to pick up on Grant's point haven't been involved in red squirrels for a long time it's every 10 years we count how many red squirrels are left and I think that the fundamental legislation incentives that drive this forward they're still some of the big elephants in the room really. Okay I think I'm going to try and move us into a couple of areas of actually tackling these things but the first one's about the human level. You know what do you think about the fact that you know there are obvious benefits for improved health and quality of life to have a healthier environment but do you think that such benefits are seen across society as a whole or is it limited in particular social groups? Is that being measured? Is it something that you're aware of because clearly if you live in an area with a national park you start off with people who are much more familiar with the countryside. If you're dealing with a vast majority of kids they're in an urban environment and there's all the different aspects about how much they become involved with the environment but do you think that social class and social groups are pretty mixed in their uptake of the benefits of having a healthier environment? Grant? I mean I think it's a key question and there was conference last year at the John Muir conference in Perth which the park's organised with a load of people in recent leech spoke from the NHS side of things and basically said we put up a picture of a family in Perth and I remember the whole story around this family and said you know what are you doing for that person and how do they get out of that house in Perth and enjoy the countryside whether that be close to them or whether that be in national parks and I think that is a big challenge for all of us. I mean I know that there's a lot of work going on and in terms of we try to reach out to Inverness, Aberdein, Dundee Perth around the park in terms of that's where we're focusing it's not necessarily on the people within the park in terms of the education side we still do a lot within the park as well but in terms of that's where we're looking but we tend to use other organisations who are more engaged in that area so things like we do a lot of work with Backbone which is an organisation which trains community leaders in those places to then get people to come out of their own accord if you like rather than needing if you like rangers or guides or anything like that they have the confidence to come out into places like the Cairngorms but it's a big issue in terms of do we still preach too much to the converted probably do we need to get the message out wider absolutely what are the mechanisms to do that I think we've got some I think we could probably do that better if we started to coordinate slightly across not just the public agencies but into the NGOs etc about how we're all doing that and then seeing who's targeting who are we all actually targeting the same lot and actually we're not nobody's targeting across here so I think there's probably more work we've done on that but I actually think there's a lot of decent stuff going on across lots of different organisations but it's a big I think it's a big issue actually and we probably still do conservation or biodiversity probably still sitting here with being a white bearded man it's probably white bearded men who conservationists with people got in their head and we need to get away from that I'm sorry yeah I know I'm just I'm not saying anything you know it's your injured bearded man yeah they agree that there's something in what you see I'm not going to prolong this one I think that's almost summed it up but Angus mcdonald's the next question about this outcome in the 2020 challenge we're all aware that the strategic outcome number four states that the speciall value and international importance of Scotland's nature and geodiversity is assured wildlife is faring well and we have a highly effective network of protected places if you'll forgive me for being slightly parochial convener for a second I just happened to have the biodiversity duty report from a Falkirk council which was recently submitted to the Scottish Government and it actually highlights a prime example of partnership working with the inner force landscape initiative which is delivering a number of projects 30 odd projects I think around the inner force over the period 2014 to 2019 and I think it was actually launched in this very committee room by the previous environment minister which I was pleased to host now can I ask the panel members if you're aware of any other initiatives that are taking place to improve plant habitat and species diversity in Scotland and are these initiatives underpinned by the highly effective network of protected places as stated in outcome number four and I'm thinking for example of deer management practices or initiatives and any other examples would certainly be welcome okay just a couple of people down at the bottom here I've mentioned the subject grant first of all then yeah I mean that there's there's some very good examples and there's lots of I mean all across scotland there's lots of examples I mean I'll give you one that which is a slightly is which is is on the socioeconomic side as well as the the environment side and I think it shows how it brings it together but the glen live at landscape partnership which is being led by local community there which covers off a huge range of different things from the cultural heritage through to access side of things through to riparian woodlands etc it's across a whole range of things there are lots of good examples where protected areas come into that as well and I think probably from my point of view the bit the bit the protected areas mean 50% of the cairngorms is natura and the large proportion of that is SSI and there's national nature reserves and there's that that all the destinations are there I think it's about trying to make those work as a collective within bigger landscapes is the big gain for us over the next little while so instead of looking at them as if you like individual protected areas it's actually saying how does that work as a collective so within for instance strath spay there are seven or eight individual SPAs for kappa calie well that's a meta population that's a thing we should be looking at collectively so the cairngorms national park thought is put together the kappa framework which is looking across that whole woodland about how that works across recreation development conservation habitat expansion etc so I think there's lots of good examples of where we are doing that and I think protected areas provide a very good base to that but as a case for saying how do they work better as a network and how do the bits in between them work as well because we can't just have islands that you know that they're helpful to that degree but we need to join them all up as to how that works as a network and I suppose it gets back to the point that Simon made about national ecological network they would be part of that and a very key part of that but there's all obviously all the links between that that we still need to have a good think about where we put that extra effort in between. Simon Jones. Yes and to follow up and I think the national ecological network is the next big step obviously if you take a snapshot at looking at just protected areas you only get one part of the picture and if you look at the the latest state of the environment report from the european environment agency it's clear that the long term trends are still very threatening even if we've made some good progress in some particular habitats with some some species it's the bits outside the protected areas the bits that are going to really get us there when it comes to things like the 2020 challenge I think good things I think Scottish Government should be commended for the marine protected area designation I think that's been a great step forward in habitats and species the trick is how well that's going to really work in practice in the management and I think we've got real worries about about that but the more we look the more we find in a marine perspective you may be aware that Scottish National Heritage and the Wildlife Trust got together last year to work with local scallop fishermen to investigate merlbeds up in the west of Ross and NPA and nobody knew it was there because he didn't until he looked and nobody knew it was there and then you protect that and it makes you think we're from a marine perspective a marine take the onus is on us to identify the feature for protection before it can be protected and taken account of rather than looking at it from a different perspective as to any industry what is my impact going to be on this ecosystem by by me taking from it so we we have to find that rather than like for example certain elements of the fishing community not having to do that so I think Scotland generally has made some really good progress in this area we understand more certainly about our protected areas we need to think outside the box and we need to grapple some of these big issues like large scale ecological networks as it appears as if maybe the French are just about to to do Derek and Chris want some points first of all just like to back up grants point here coming back to designated sites how you integrate them with that maybe the non-designated landscapes we're working on a project in the Edelston water we were trying to slow down the flood waters coming into the valley so that don't flood people so badly at the head of the catchment there will be designated peatland sites you can block the hill drains in these designated sites that's part of the designated site management and other parts of catchment in fence of native woodlands and plant native woodlands and further down in the flood plain we can ream me under the river that we're formally canalised so it's bringing these designated management sites into into line with the non-designated sites in the valley so you can bring this whole catchment approach together and to work at the catchment scale so that's one good example I think of bringing these habitats together Chris Dixon yeah just a comment so I guess along similar lines to others here really in terms of woodland woodland protected areas on on the national forest state we're now fortunate in that many of them in fact over 90% of them are in favourable favourable condition a lot of work's gone gone into improving improving and focusing on on those areas and improving the condition of the habitats which is which is which is great however there is a broader as Simon and others have said there is a broader question about connectivity other non-protected sites and that's really where the focus needs to be as much as in the protected areas and ensuring that the condition of the broader landscape is improved and certainly that in woodland terms native woodland survey of Scotland showed that around 50% of the broader semi-natural woodlands were in in need of work to improve the condition so there's quite a significant task there at a landscape scale to to build on the the benefits of accrued from having protected areas to broaden broaden that and see you know wider scale improvements in condition Dave's your supplementary in this point was it thanks very much convener was really to pick up on the point that Simon raised there about metal beds an interesting thing that he said if you think about it the found metal beds that nobody knew were there now these things don't spring up overnight they're developed over a very long period of time so the fact that they were there despite the fact that fishermen have been fishing that ground for hundreds of years I think is very interesting because the metal beds obviously have developed and survived despite you know other use and I think we need to be really careful when we're looking at mpa's that we don't say ah a metal bed better protect that from the fishermen whether it's creals or other methods and forgetting that it's been protected obviously or it wouldn't be there over many many years and we need to allow for for that and and to get a sensible agreement that that can continue to be economic activity maybe directed in a different way rather than what has happened sometimes in the past and what a lot of people on the west coast fear and that is just a blanket exclusion as soon as something is found and that's what we must avoid at all costs and I'm involved at the moment in discussions about the different mpa's there's an interesting one round the small isles and I think there's a way that we can you know allow continued fishing from different methods as well as well as protecting the environment so it was just a comment on that that point that this the metal beds have just been discovered and must have sprung up overnight obviously they didn't it's just a very quick point what you've said really comes back to the issue of monitoring and a lot of the trends that we've talked about come from the few good data sets that we have great data sets for certain groups of organisms birds are brilliant because people like monitoring birds vascular plants are pretty good as well something's like deer as well we monitor well in many cases for many of the groups of organisms which are important in Scotland for example loyal plants we just don't have the monitoring data to detect trends and and so we're we're struggling in some cases just to know what our natural capital is so some areas are highlighted as being important for a particular species but to some extent we don't know what the full extent of that species is within Scotland you know there was a celemblin that was found on top of cangorms and it was the only record in scotland now is that the only place where it lives or is that the only place where a celemblin expert's gone on holiday so that's that's a key issue and I think this this monitoring uh yeah this this monitoring issue of for many of the groups are important loyal plants in particular things like the rusty bogmoss that's that's an area where we um where we're really lacking the effort and the and the standardized knowledge across the country. Alec Ferguson wanted to point this at a very brief point the one Dave Thompson made which I've got great sympathy with which is that not only I think do we need to look very carefully at just sort of introducing a total exclusion zone in some of these areas but I think there is a potential for knock-on impact of a negative type into other areas that are not covered by these protective measures um and I'm thinking specifically in my own constituency of Wigtown Bay which is a special protected area I think but not a not designated as a marine protected area where the area within it that is going to is is currently open to dredging is actually going to be widen considerably and one can only um there are mill beds in Wigtown Bay as well but one can only put that down to increasing pressure uh on to to have fishable areas um in in place of where there are going to now going to be sort of total exclusion zones so I think we just need to be a little bit careful and keep an eye on the knock-on impact of some of these measures that are being taken which might well have a detrimental impact on the biodiversity of those areas. Okay I think we'll move on to supplementary from uh Criam Day. Thank you Cibunna. In terms of protecting designated sites and improving biodiversity generally and with regard to the impact of deer are we seeing any improvement in practices what is the current direction of travel given the clock is ticking as far as potentially being more prescriptive with managerial management measures is concerned. Grant Boyd. Well I suppose deer are an interesting issue in the Cairngorms um obviously you got some some very large states that um where deer is a major issue in terms of the economics of the area um there is definitely um people are coming together and we're working with them on your new deer management plans in the Cairngorms to try and bring I know there's what this nature doing in Monolio for instance as well um so there's work under way on that side I suppose it's has that led to any changes on the ground yet I suppose that we're I'm unsure of that actually to tell the truth and I think that's where we're I couldn't say yes there has definitely been changes for the for the better or that it's still where we are I think there's still an awful lot of discussion um as there continues to be around boundaries between different types of management and I think that's our main issue in the Cairngorms is where you have varying varying management objectives um which can sometimes be diametrically opposed and they they meet at the boundary between two estates how you ever reconcile some of those things in a voluntary way um I think is quite quite tricky for for everyone involved so I mean we are deeply involved in the deer management side of things within the Cairngorms and there's a lot of work and a lot of goodwill to try and make it work um I couldn't say at the moment whether it is leading to the right changes if you like for biodiversity or for a whole range of other things but it's certainly something working me a very close eye on the Cairngorms. Simon Jones Thank you Carina. I I think I'd agree with with Grant in terms of I sense a kind of a the super tanker slowly starting to turn a little bit on on this one. The trusts a member of the social union deer management groups who had their AGM recently and one of my team was at that and said he sensed the kind of conversations that were happening there were markedly different from a few years ago and there's less polarization and I think the the the the the sort of voluntary deer management plan approach with a threat of a mandatory one is is focusing people's minds so I see it at the start where the kind of the relationship the respect building and the the concept that actually upland ground and deer has not just looked at from an economical an economic input but there is a realisation of the other benefits that come that potentially could come from larger scale deer management but I think it's such early days yet that I don't think that I'm not aware of any real evidence on the ground where I can see there's a other than exclusion or several estates that have been really heavily culling deer and therefore can show you vegetation changes radical vegetation changes. I think we are a long long way yet from people voluntarily having the will to really do something about large numbers of deer certainly in in the uplands. Next and then James. Yeah clearly and deer management very big issue on the national forest estate and and I know my colleagues who operate and manage that side of the house aim very much to to demonstrate best practice and be seen as you know sort of exemplars of that and I work very hard with a deer management group within the deer management group structure to to try and influence others to you know to adopt best practice as it were but inevitably have to agree with with others that you know we still I guess in some respects feel as if we're at a at an early stage in in the sense of influencing others across the board to to be undertaking the kind of management that maybe we would like to see in order to improve the condition of many habitats. James. Not coming from any particular position of expertise in this matter but I would only observe that that the the Aberdeenshire pilot was approached as a vehicle to give more of a focus on lowland deer management within our area principally road deer I mean we've talked a lot about a plant management of deer and presumably that's mainly red deer but but the feeling I got was that there was a gap in the structure in the in the targeting in terms of lowland deer management within our area and they were casting around looking for something to hang it on it wasn't something we were able to pick up but there may be an issue out there as I say not an expert in this matter but but it was something that was highlighted to us. I'm going to ask point we're talking about 2016 point where these management plans for deer management groups have got to be in place and working we're talking also about a 2020 target for biodiversity do you think it's possible that we're actually going to get deer in hand by 2020 there must be a heck of lot of work for gamekeepers I have to say because there's a massive amount of extra deer that don't need to be there to get the ecosystem back in balance do you think that with the deer management plan approach you know taking a tough line by 2016 if need be that it will be time enough to actually show a difference by 2020 a small difference if there's mandatory requirement for deer management plans and there's mandatory requirement for action on the ground then I think you'll be by 2020 you will begin in certain places to be able to show some positive impact but this is a this is obviously a there's a long timescale in this and clearly is conflated with the issue of particularly sheep numbers on the hill as well and how how the trend in that can influence what deer are doing as well but the wildlife trust would support a mandatory requirement to do that longer term if we are really serious about driving change here then we need to be prepared to do that I think it depends on it would be interesting to see when the plans come forward by 2016 in these groups as to what they say and do we think that that will lead to the changes even beyond the 2020 thing that will actually lead to those changes I think it's a little bit difficult to say right now will because it hasn't even been agreed what people are really proposing to do and thus to say will that then help us to 2020 I don't think we can say that right now what I would say is that unless there are some fairly tight targeting of work within those deer management plans and I agree there's a question of capacity is is a very good one in certain places I think there will be an issue of can you actually do that within that time frame but I suppose if you at least knew that that was the game plan and that it would take to 2022 or 2023 then okay I think you're in the game but I do think that it's a really crucial that when that 2016 thing comes that there's a good look at all those deer management plans and say well does that add up to delivering these sorts of targets because if it doesn't then then you're going to have to have another conversation but I think that's a case of going through all those deer management plans looking at all the different things that people are proposing to do and I suspect on certain estates in certain places they will make that and in certain areas they might make that and in other places they might be quite far away and I think it'll be quite a mixed picture across the whole of Scotland because as you know there are some very good deer management groups and there's also some places where there aren't even deer management groups that exist so I think it's going to be a pretty mixed picture in 2016 in terms of what is working and what's not but I think it's crucial that a decision is made at that point as to how we definitely take that forward and to say okay to meet those 2020 targets and this is really what is going to have to happen and I think there will be quite a lot of differing opinions on that would be. The signals from here are I don't see too much that there has to be action on this and we know what the problem is now exemplified by the Forestry Commission doing about 30 per cent of the culling and only about 9 per cent of the land. There's a whole lot of people not doing their bit for biodiversity just now so they don't have to wait until 2016 to get started. I mean there was a week climbing the other day and I went through in a statement to which one but where there was a large amount of feeding of wild deer going on now is that what we're looking for come 2020? Convener again I'd go back to one of my first points about having a clear vision and being mindful of rural communities who part their cultural heritage is deer management and how that's critical. I think we want a vision where the hunting of deer is still very much critical to the cultural heritage and nearly the economy of these communities in the future. What we want to see it is happening in a slightly different landscape. There was probably more woodland and woodland edge stalking, sun, water, scans and air where I don't want to come out and say we want to take on the deer management world what I want to do is take on the deer management world of how we currently do it and we think we can still be doing this with biodiversity benefits and people still earning a living from this but on a on a different type of landscape that isn't a bald hillside which is what currently we've we've managed to create. I think that's been a useful addition to the biodiversity discussion just now thanks but we need to move on to money again so Jim Hume. Outgum 5 is regarding sustainable land and water management and two years ago the minister wrote to this committee saying that the common agricultural policy would help to drive the changes in land management and there was a commitment in the draft strategy that that cap reform would do that. We now know what that cap reform is, we've mentioned it slightly earlier and I just wonder if guests here today would put their views on cap pillars 1 and 2 and if that they think that that is fit for purpose in encouraging land managers to develop and retain biodiversity. All right, who wants to kick off there? No, that's fine then. It is a thorny issue. In a way the cap kind of does in a way dictate how the countryside looks in a way because it's the subsidised system, because it's farmed, it's managed, it's been like that for Catforth 650 odd year or so. That is an issue and it's slowly been evolving and developing and moving forward in this iteration through greening. It has been a slight missed opportunity, the conservation bodies would agree, it's been a missed opportunity as regards taking a leap forward in conservation, it's taking a small step forward, it's a small step but it's not a leap and it's not that step change that we need. I think a lot of people would recognise that especially for the environmental NGOs. We don't have the answer to that necessarily, but it's probably not going to go as far as the conservation bodies would like to have seen it go. I'm not an expert on cap, but we've been doing a bit of work over the last couple of weeks just by chance looking at the biodiversity benefits of greening in pillar 1. What we've seen from that work supports what Derek has said, that there may be some benefits. It's going to be entirely dependent in some cases on, for example, if you're changing the crop that you're growing or going over to two or three crops, exactly what different crops you go to, so part of it is about the guidance that's put in place. If the guidance is focused on supporting biodiversity, some of those actions that are there as possibilities may be beneficial, whereas some of the other things that you could do, for example, switching from spring to winter barley, possibly it's not going to have such a big consequence. So there may be some benefits to biodiversity, those benefits will be dependent on the choices that are made in terms of land management, and that's going to be in part dependent on helpful guidance going out to people, I think. I'm going to give you a deep analysis of cap, because I'm by no means an expert either, but just in terms of the experience of the Aberdeenshire pilot, a comment made by many of our stakeholders fairly consistently is the option for more sort of local targeting of the funds, and we welcome the local targeting measures that have been put in place within SRDP, both within the agricultural options and also within the forestry options, Cairngorms National Park of some very good examples of local targeting for forestry options there, but we think that that's something that needs to be taken forward and evolve further to allow us more local targeted measures, taking account of local wants and needs in circumstances and work that's done within comparable processes like the pilots and that funding can be directed in that way on a more local basis. Grant Lawyer? Yeah, I suppose I should put my hand up and say that I was the cap policy officer back in 2005, so this is something that I've been involved with, yeah, been involved for a long time. Well, there's a question. I think that the stuff on pillar one is a bit of wait and see actually in terms of how it pans out, in terms of what people actually do ecological focus are