 I encourage members who are leaving the chamber to do so as quickly and quietly as possible. The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 7598, in the name of Kenneth Gibson, on bringing back the Eurasian links to Scotland. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I invite members wishing to participate to press the request-to-speak buttons as soon as possible. I call on Kenneth Gibson to open the debate for around seven minutes, Mr Gibson. I also thank colleagues who signed my motion to make this debate possible and those who will contribute to it. Today, we live in a country that is amongst the most nature-depleted in the world. The biodiversity and tax index, which estimates a percentage of natural biodiversity remaining across the world, found that the UK is in the lowest 10 per cent of nations globally for biodiversity and bottom among the G7. World bow diversity is declining faster than at any time in human history, and recent years have seen some notable improvements, both nationally and globally at least. Across Europe, increased awareness, hunting bans and habitat restoration have thankfully resulted in a gradual return of many native species. In Spain, the Iberian links has gone from the world's most endangered feeling to the greatest triumph in cat conservation anywhere in just 20 years, with numbers rising from under 100 to over 1100. Spain has invested to save the links, which it calls the Iberian jewel, and has even built wildlife underpasses, so links territories are linked and the cat is less likely to be struck by cars. The animal is popular, even with farmers and landowners, so I now realise that Iberian links do not prey on lambs of domestic animals but displace foxes, which do. Indeed, many landowners have launched tourism ventures that offer visitors a chance to see these beautiful animals in the wild. Here, the reintroduction of beavers, ospreys and seagulls and action to save wild cats and otters, coupled with new measures to tackle wildlife crime, are all very positive measures, which shows a commitment to conservation. However, any debate around biodiversity cannot ignore the fact that the UK is one of the only countries in Europe with no apex predators, casting doubt on our appetite to play a role in addressing the recovery of degraded ecosystems. We cannot expect Africa, Asia and Latin America to save their species without saving and restoring our own. The EU's biodiversity strategy for 2030 is a comprehensive, ambitious and long-term plan to protect nature and reverse ecosystem degradation. The strategy aims to put Europe's biodiversity on a path to recovery by 2030 and seeks to binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, protecting up to 30 per cent of our land and seas, and we should be able to do that at least as well. EU region links are part of the solution and have already been successfully reintroduced in Austria, France, Germany and Switzerland, all more densely populated than Scotland. Research has confirmed that our highlands has enough habitat and suitable prey to support the population of around 400 links. EU region links are one of four link species found around the world. Originally native of Scotland, the last of them were exterminated in the southern uplands in 1760. They are corpuscular and shy medium-sized wild cats inhabiting dense woodland and mountain slopes far from human settlements. The demise of the links was caused by human activity, including hunting, the collapse of wild deer populations and widespread loss of woodland. Scotland having undergone partial reforestation over the last century, coupled with a massive growth in deer populations, means that we now have both ample habitat and prey for links to thrive. Reintroducing European links is not only morally right, it would contribute to nutrient recycling, carter's provision for other species as well as vegetation and tree regeneration. Of course, a links reintroduction programme must meet strict environmental and policy tests laid down by NatureScot, the Government Conservation Agency and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The agency's rules require licence applicants to prove a reintroduced species can survive naturally, avoiding conflicts with local landowners such as sheep or chicken farmers by causing unacceptable harm to people's wellbeing, livelihoods and recreational activities. The links to Scotland partners, Trees for Life, LifeScape and Scotland, and The Big Picture support a five-year trial reintroduction of links, recognising at this relies on navigating complex social, cultural and possibly political obstacles. Of course, any reintroduction must be preceded by careful discussions between all stakeholders, including gamekeepers, foresters, farmers, conservationists, landowners, tourism businesses and rural communities. During 2023, the links focus group will explore the barriers to links reintroduction, aiming to build trust between stakeholders and address areas of disagreement over science and local knowledge. We face a climate emergency, and must be bold to rectify the damage that our unsustainably high-carbon emissions have done since the industrial revolution. The Scottish Government's draft climate change plan proposed ambitious targets for future woodland expansion to cover 20 per cent of Scotland by 2032. Forestry and land Scotland plant between 15 and 24 million trees each year, combining replanting sites where timber is harvested, woodland-created and dead trees are placed following replanting. Unfortunately, a major hindrance is that most young trees are vulnerable to deer for up to five years. Forestry and land Scotland survey specifically for deer damage on productive crops. Last year, the rolling three-year average of trees damaged by deer, even with environmentally harmful plastic covers. Damage by deer was 20 per cent up from 15 per cent in 2017. The Eurasian Links is a big-game hunter that preys predominantly on medium-sized woodland deer such as Rowan's sicker and the calves of red deer. As a highly efficient predator of deer, its reintroduction will help to reduce or, at the very least, redistribute deer populations and ease the pressure on our woodlands. Understanding those hunting patterns is also key to addressing the concerns that are held by some farmers and gamekeepers about possible links attacks on sheep. According to Dr David Heatherington, a leading expert on Eurasian Links who works as a nature networks manager at the Cairngombs national park authority, the presence of four or more deer per square kilometre of forest usually means little scope for sheep predation. Scotland's density currently sits over 10 deer per square kilometre. In countries where sheep graze and flocks in open pasture alongside woodland, Dr Heatherington described sheep predation as a small scale of one or two local attacks. I encourage colleagues to attend Tuesday evening's parliamentary section about links reintroductions sponsored by Ariane Burgess. We can talk directly to Dr Heatherington about what it would mean to live alongside links in Scotland. Public support is key. Related research, led by Charity Scotland, the big picture trees for life and Vincent Wildlife Trust, spent a year consulting a range of different stakeholders in local communities in the Cairngombs national park and Argyll. There was sufficient appetite to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the potential for links reintroduction to want further exploration. Discussion should also focus on important practicalities such as compensation schemes in case of livestock predation. In Switzerland, where there are 250 links and fewer deer, predation of sheep has remained under 50 animals per year across the whole country since 2006, fluctuating slightly in response to changes in deer population. Problem links, meaning those taking 15 or more sheep in a year, can legally be shot under licence, but that has not happened in 20 years. To put that in perspective only a fortnight ago, a dog killed 16 lambs in five. Like many colleagues, I greatly enjoyed watching the landmark David Attenborough series on the BBC, Wild Isles. It highlighted the important work undertaking to halt the alarming decline in nature, wildlife and habitats across the British Isles. Sir David said, and I quote, "...we all need to urgently repair our relationship with the natural world. We now have a few short years during which we can still make a choice." Conservationists have, for many decades, worked hard to save our dwindling wildlife. Now is the time to move beyond just saving existing species by taking them a proactive approach in reintroducing native species, driven to extinction by human activity. Links will prosper in Scotland. There is plenty of food and habitat where they will is ultimately down to societal choices, our willingness to share space with other species. Reintroducing native species like the Asian links is not a panacea when it comes to biodiversity loss, but it can be a positive measure to boost the health of our natural world, help tackling climate change and biodiversity loss in the process. Mr Gibson, we move to the open debate. I call Edward Mountain to be followed by R.A.M. by a just around four minutes, Mr Mountain. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Before I start, I would like to remind the chamber of my register of interest that I have been a farmer for over 40 years and I have been involved in managing the countryside for a period of that time. I do not think that Mr Gibson is going to be surprised when I say to him that I am not one of those people who would like to see links reintroduced to the cangorms. It has been 500 years away from this country and bringing it back now is just not the time. As far as I can see, as an MSP representing the cangorms, there is no appetite for its reintroduction, except for some conservation organisations who are interested in single species and the introduction and reforestation of the highlands. What we ought to be doing, rather than talking about introducing new species, is managing the species that we are in danger of losing. In the cangorms, one of those species is the capocali. It is vitally important. We have pumped millions of pounds into protecting the capocali. The RSPB has had Abernethi reserve for a considerably long period of time and has done nothing to reverse it. Therefore, the capocali is something that we should be spending more time on doing. I fear that links will really attack this ground-nesting bird in the same way that other predators that have come in recently, such as the pine martens, have done. Thank you very much to Edward Mountain for taking intervention. Research has shown that links keep fox numbers down and are more likely to kill the capocali. You talk about not having reintroducing species. Does that mean that you do not think that we should have reintroduced the beaver, the sea eagle or, for example, the osprey back in 1971? I will come to a lot of these speeches, Presiding Officer, if I may. Along with the capocali are the other important ground-nesting birds that we see around the cangorms. That does not include curlews and birds that nest on grassland outside the woodland edges, but also shanks and pipers, which would nest in areas of a forestation exactly where they would be found by the links. We have an appalling trap record when it comes to the reintroduction of species. I am going to talk about beavers because you mentioned it, Mr Gibson. First of all, we should not forget that beavers were illegally reintroduced into this country, into Tayside, and have spread out since. In fact, I was on the committee when I heard Roseanna Cunningham explaining that if we were allowed them to go further, they would not be spread by humans beyond that, they would have to spread out naturally, and that lethal control would still be part of the positive management action that needs to be undertaken in relation to this species. We have now got a minister that has changed all of that, and we are allowing beavers, and we are talking about relocating beavers into areas where they have never been before, for example, Glenafric. I can proudly hold up my hand and say that I have been managing managed land up around Glenafric and personally authorised the culling of about 30,000 deer to allow the trees to grow up in Glenafric. Now we are going to bring in an animal that is going to eat them and knock them all down. It does not seem to make much sense to me. Mr Gibson mentioned seagulls. We bought seagulls back, and they are great because we can actually see them. We very rarely see beavers, but we can see sea seagulls, but they come with problems. They do take land, they do take sheep, and I have farmers on-sky contacting me regularly about the need to control seagulls and preventing them from taking their hefted flocks, the lands from their hefted flocks, which will prevent them from carrying out future activities. In fact, we are paying farmers. We are paying farmers quite a lot of money when it comes to loss of land. On other species that we are trying to protect, I just want to mention the wildcat. It is a personal issue for me to see wildcats reintroduced. I have taken a huge amount of time going to the Royal Zoological Society for Scotland to make sure that we are getting wildcats back. They are going to be in direct competition with Lynx, and Lynx is not going to do them any favours. When it comes to Lynx, I believe that when it comes to the highlands, what we are seeing is central bales activity saying that it is fine. Let us put Lynx up into the highlands. In the highlands, farmers are despairing at the suggestion that Lynx is going to come in there. Conservation bodies for important species such as capocali wildcats are despairing when it comes to reintroducing Lynx, because the very species that they are trying to protect will become the prey. When it comes to tourism, there is always lots of noise made about how beavers are going to increase tourism. I want to know how many tourists have actually seen a beaver. If Lynx's would come back, I want to know how many tourists would actually see a Lynx. I doubt it very much that there would be many. It was the previous Minister for Agriculture who said when it came to the reintroduction of Lynx, that over my dead body is what he said at a conference. I hope that we do not see the focus of the viewing of the dead body as Lynx is rail raided through into the highlands, but I make this message as my final point. I just say, keep your Lynx ideas and your Lynx effects to yourself. We do not want them in the highlands. Thank you. I want to thank Kenny Gibson for securing this debate, which I see is a contribution to our national conversation about whether we are ready for the reintroduction of Eurasian Lynx. In the face of the nature and climate emergencies, we need all the help that we can get from nature. Lynx can help us in our efforts to restore nature, especially our forests, which in turn will help us bring down the rising temperatures of our climate. However, any reintroduction must be done with people involved in land management understanding why bringing back the Lynx to Scotland is necessary. I commend Trees for Life, Lifescapes and Scotland the Big Picture for their proactive work on this in Argyll and the Cairngorms national park. Under a range of international agreements, countries around the world signed up to do the work of reintroducing species that were once present. As Kenny has said, we have evidence that Lynx once made Scotland their home. Coupled with those commitments, we now have biodiversity obligations to protect and restore 30 per cent of Scotland's nature on land and at sea by 2030. That is just a little over six years away. We understand now that nature plays a central role in how we can reduce and stabilise rising temperatures in our climate. Supporting land managers to do to work together in landscape scale, nature restoration will be key. However, we have so much work to do and some of it will have to be done by allowing nature to get on with it. That means that we need to create the conditions for natural regeneration and the Lynx can play a key role in creating these conditions. Reforesting Scotland is essential. Barren, mountains and moors are not natural, and in most cases they are the result of overgrazing by deer. We have, as we have heard already, four types of deer in Scotland, including two that are native, the smaller row deer and red deer. We currently have an average of 20 deer per square kilometre, when our land has a carrying capacity for about two per square kilometre. Lynx would be a natural predator for the smaller row deer, but it is not just reducing deer numbers that the Lynx can help with. In nature, predators help to shape the landscape by simply being present. Deer will not go to places where they know Lynx are present. In this way, the grazing pressure is reduced and natural regeneration can take place. There is a world-class example of this. When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States and their presence alone stopped the deer from grazing specific areas of the park, which allowed forests to regenerate. Now in Scotland we have the right conditions for introducing Lynx enough of the right habitat and enough food. I am aware, as Edward Mountain has said—I am not going to take an intervention—that people who manage our land are concerned about the reintroduction of Lynx. We need to bring them into this conversation. As Scotland's leading expert, as we know, Dr David Heatherington has said, when people hear about Lynx, they tend to conflate them with wolves and describe wolf behaviour, but we must get curious about the Lynx and want to understand it. Lynx, while being a top predator, are different from wolves. They live in forests where they are safe under cover, and that is where they prefer to hunt. They are elusive and tend to stay away from humans. In the Dura mountains in Switzerland, which we have already heard about, Lynx were reintroduced in the 1970s and have rarely caused problems for land managers and farmers. Regulations are in place, which is what we can do. If a Lynx becomes a problem, and by that this means killing over 15 sheep in a year, a licence can be applied for to shoot that Lynx. They have not had to authorise a licence since 2003. I invite everyone participating in this debate and everyone in this Parliament to continue to be curious about how Lynx can help us by joining me next Tuesday evening in the Hollywood room, where we can explore whether Scotland is ready for Lynx and here from Dr David Hetherington. I thought when you mentioned reintroducing wolves that Edward is going to fall off his chair. First of all, I congratulate the member on securing this intriguing debate. Let me add that this does not mean that the reintroduction of the Lynx is imminent, but it opens up the debate for, I hope, informed and tolerant discussion. I will reference the detailed research by Lynx for Scotland, which sought to assess the social feasibility of potential Lynx reintroduction to Scotland through consultation with stakeholders and communities in two focal areas, Kergorms National Park and Urgyll. I understand that that represents the first effort to assess social feasibility and is of central importance for the proposed reintroduction of a large carnivore that has been absent from Britain for a period of time, equivalent to multiple human generations. Now some graphic but relevant information, Deputy Presiding Officer. The Lynx is a pure carnivore. Depending on region and availability of prey, it hunts cloven-hoofed animals such as row deer as well as young red deer and small mammals such as hares and rabbits. In rare instances, smaller predators such as foxes are also on the Lynx menu. It hunts mainly in the evening when its prey is also active and its territory is heavily wooded in the forested areas. When hunting, the Lynx is aided by its excellent sensory organs. It can see six times better in the dark than a human and is able to spot a rabbit from a distance of 300 meters. With its finely tuned ears, it can also hear the slightest rustle. It is a stalk and ambush hunter that catches its prey just like a cat does. I understand that if a surprise attack fails, however, the prey is not pursued. It seizes its prey with its front claws and kills it with a bite to the throat. If it has killed a deer and is not disturbed, the Lynx will return to its prey in several nights until it has completely consumed it. A Lynx needs to kill about one deer a week, which equates to around 60 animals a year. It could be, and I just say it could, be providing a natural means of keeping deer numbers down, predate on foxes, which, in turn, predate on ground-nesting birds. I have been driven to extinction in parts of Europe since the beginning of the 19th century, yes, certainly. Presiding Officer, thank you and I thank the member for giving way. I totally appreciate that there may be some other predators killed, which could be foxes, could be wild cats, but it is also going to kill ground-nesting birds. The very ground-nesting birds in the kengelms that we are red-listing as a endangered speech of the Cappacallee. Does the member accept that Cappacallee would be put under increased threat by the Lynx? From my information, many good gamekeepers in my part of the south of Scotland are foxes, they are concerned about, that are predating on ground-nesting birds. Foxes are the problems nipping out of the woods, but hold your peace, Chris. You are going to be happy with my conclusion, I hope. Of course, there were diverse views, as expected, on the benefits and disbenefits of reintroduction, and that is quite rightly the case. Indeed, there was a proposal for the trial reintroduction of Lynx to kill their forests by the Lynx UK Trust in 2018, which was rejected by the then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for, among other reasons, insufficient engagement with key stakeholders and communities. So, the overall objective of the Lynx to Scotland study was to provide an evidence-based to inform the discourse among stakeholders about the feasibility of reintroduction, being clear about the range of views of stakeholders and to gain a clearer understanding of public belief and perceptions around reintroducing the animal. 430 verbatim statements were initially selected from interviewed transcripts refined to set of 52 statements and then considered. Community groups were also invited to engage. It was reinforced that roe had become hugely problematic over recent decades and difficult to hunt under woodland cover. It was thought that, in an ideal world, Lynx would have a regulatory impact on smaller carnivores that are negatively impacting protected species, such as, as I have already said, the Cape or Killie. It was questioned what role Lynx might play in contributing to nutrient recycling in woodland. However, it was also expressed that red deer are commercially very valuable to the Highland economy and Lynx might be detrimental to this. A potential consequence of Lynx reducing red deer abundance was thought to be loss of grazed heath with knock-on impacts on protected species in perhaps an increased risk of wildfire on the peatlands. Questions were also asked about the growth dynamics for Lynx populations, what limited their numbers in Europe. The main body of discussion, of course, was a discussion concerning the potential impact of Lynx on sheep farming in Scotland, and naturally farmers want to protect their speech from traumatic unnecessary death. Now, I hope that you are listening, Mr Mountain, because the recommendations are selected three from the study. This is the first. It is not currently appropriate for proponents of Lynx reintroduction to submit a licence application for it. At present, there are significant areas of contestation with regard to the feasibility of Lynx reintroduction, and if those are not satisfactorily addressed, there is a strong potential for the escalation of existing conflicts. Secondly, a group with cross-sectoral representation should be established to appraise the findings of the study. The process should seek to integrate local and scientific knowledge in appraising and addressing those areas, and the output from this group should inform the processes. Thirdly—this is not all of them—a comprehensive risk assessment for protected species and rural industries is required in order to address divergent perceptions over the potential impacts, both positive and negative, of Lynx reintroduction. I will conclude by saying to Mr Mountain that he looks at this report and sees that it is not coming out with a proposal that is reintroduced now and then, but that much more detailed research must be done to satisfy all the stakeholders, should and if and when the eurasian links are reintroduced to Scotland. Thank you very much, Ms Graham. I know that we can rely on you to provide the graphic information, if not to stick to your time limit in a member's debate. With that, I now invite Lorna Slater to respond to the debate minister for around seven minutes, please. Thank you so much, Presiding Officer. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this debate, and thank you to Kenneth Gibson for bringing this debate. It is lovely to hear support for conservation and nature restoration. I was really interested to hear about the data on the Iberian Lynx. I did not know that Lynx competed with foxes. It is not an area of specialty for me, so this is for me a good opportunity to learn about this, so that was very interesting to hear. I thought that it was really important that Mr Gibson highlighted the damage to trees by deer, because that absolutely highlights the importance of deer management to effective conservation and promotion of biodiversity. Mr Hamilton highlights the risks to caprically. Of course, that is an extremely endangered species that we are very concerned about in Scotland right now, so I appreciate his highlighting that species, which we are doing so much to protect because it is such an iconic species here. When we return to beavers, I do not support illegal introductions of any animal species and the illegal introduction of beavers into the Tayside catchment basin has caused innumerable problems, which has set back the acceptance of beavers a long way through those. However, we now have the Scottish beaver strategy, which was put together by 50 different stakeholders, which is to reintroduce beavers across Scotland to appropriate areas where that stakeholder engagement has been done, because I appreciate that how things were done in Tayside was not the right way, and they should not be done like that. Edward Mountain Thank you, Presiding Officer. Just when it comes to all of managing species, I just want to be clear from the minister's point of view. Do you believe that lethal control should be part of a management option? Through the chair, please, Mr Mountain. I was asking if the minister believed that lethal control should be part of the management options when species are introduced. I mean, that is a very good question for the member. At the moment, lethal control is still used overwhelmingly for beavers. I think that we have only managed to relocate a handful of beaver in Scotland, so lethal control is still being used overwhelmingly for beaver management, so that is still our main tool there, which I think is unfortunate, but that is the reality of the situation that we are in. We of course want to relocate, translocate beavers wherever that is possible to appropriate sites under license. Arianne Burgess, as the regional MSP for Highlands and Islands, of course did contradict Mr Mountain's claim somewhat that the Highlands don't want this, so thank you, Arianne, for providing an alternative view there. Christine Grahame was very welcome, her contribution, about opening the debate and her enthusiasm for effective community engagement and full engagement with all stakeholders. I think that it is interesting to note, as Ms Grahame said, about the opening up, the starting of a debate. I was recently at one of the events here in Parliament with many environmental stakeholders and spoke to a gentleman who had been wanting to reintroduce beavers into the UK for 25 years. When the first introductions were done in Scotland, I believe it was in 2009 and now, of course, we have got this beaver strategy for introducing beavers all over Scotland. For him, that was a sort of epiphany, a lifetimes work coming to fruition that children in Scotland will now grow up alongside beavers in their natural environment, which I think is wonderful and a significant achievement for us. The Scottish Government fully recognises that appropriate reintroductions of native species can be beneficial to ecosystems and restoring biodiversity, and those include successful reintroduction of sea eagle, beaver and red kite. There are benefits that links can bring, such as their ability to reduce deer numbers naturally, as well as the creation of new opportunities for wildlife tourism. I want to answer Mr Mountain's point on that. I have seen beavers in the wild, but only in Canada. The ones here I have not yet seen because there simply aren't enough of them, but I'm looking forward to when there are more. Don and Sunset, you can also see them. The one I saw in Canada was actually in broad daylight, but there you go. The reintroduction of an apex predator such as the links can profoundly change the ecology of an area, as alluded to by Ms Burgess, in various ways and a key consideration in understanding how reintroduced links might affect the current ecological balance centres around their interactions with other carnivores. That would be most notable with the Scottish Wildcat, Red Fox, Badger and Pine Martin, as all of these species have existed in Scotland in the absence of a top predator, such as a link for hundreds of years. Alongside the potential benefits, we also have to consider the negative effect links may have. For example, farmers will be quite understandably concerned about the impacts that they may have on livestock and on sheep in particular. While roe deer would be expected to make up the vast majority of a link as dies in Scotland, other species may be taken. Those are likely to include rarer and iconic species such as Capercail, Red Squirrel and the Scottish Wildcat. There may also be risks to the critically endangered Scottish Wildcat, either through interference or killing rather than consumption. We have always been clear that any reintroduction of a species such as links could only take place following full consultation that ensured the views of those who are most likely to be most effective are properly taken into account. Anyone who wants to release any new species such as the links would require a licence from NatureScot who would assess any such application in line with the Scottish Code for Conservation Translocations. They would also consult the National Species Reintroduction Forum, which has an advisory role with Scottish Government and other stakeholders prior to reaching any licensing decision. The links to Scotland report noted that there are major barriers that would need to be satisfactorily addressed before any such reintroduction could be taken forward. The report demonstrated that reintroduction projects are often complex and require careful consideration and planning to ensure national and international best practice guidelines are met. Any proposed application would also require a substantial amount of work to be undertaken to fill the current knowledge gaps, as Ms Graham alluded to. The Scottish Government remains open to constructive and informative conversations and debates such as this one this evening, which can help us all to understand more about the potential impacts of links reintroductions in Scotland.