 Good morning and welcome to the first meeting of the NETS era energy and transport committee for 2020. I suppose it's probably the last time I'll get chance to say this but I hope everyone has a very happy new year and that it brings everything that they want. A gender item 1 is a decision on taking business in private. We have consideration whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Item 3 is to consider the evidence that we will hear today on the Biodiversity Delivery Pans. Item 4 is to consider our work programme. Are we happy to take these items in private? We are. The first item on business today is gender item 2. It is an evidence session on the draft delivery plan to accompany the Scottish Government's new biodiversity strategy. The committee is continuing work that we started in late 2022, when we took evidence on the draft strategy. On 12 December, we discussed the delivery plan with a panel of experts on marine biodiversity. This morning, we will hear from a panel of experts and stakeholders to discuss the terrestrial aspects of the plan. I'm pleased to welcome Dr Caroline Brown, the director of Scotland, Ireland and English region's Royal Town Planning Institute. Sarah Cowey, the policy manager for the National Farmers Union. Dr Paul Wilson, Head of Habitats and Species, RSPB Scotland. Bruce Wilson, the head of policy advocacy of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. I would say also that joining us remotely is Elsa Rayburn, who is the chairperson for the community land Scotland. I should point out to those people watching and committee members that Dr Hannah Rudman, who was also down to attend as a witness, has been unable to attend today. Thank you all of those that have attended for joining us. I'm pleased to welcome both Finlay Carson and Rhoda Grant from the Royal Affairs and Islands Committee, who are in attendance for today's evidence session. You'll both get a chance to ask questions nearer to the end of the evidence session. We are going to spend about 90 minutes on this session, and we're going to move straight into committee members' questions. Before we do, because the evidence will follow the biodiversity strategy on land, I'm going to make a voluntary declaration of interest. I remind members that in my register of interest I show that I am a member of a family farming partnership. We do farm land and that I'm also involved in a wild salmon fishery where I'm a partner. Both of those have an involvement, possibly in where we're discussing this morning. Full details can be found in my register of interest. On that note, I'm going to turn to the first questions that come from Douglas Lumsden. The first question is, do you feel that you've been engaged in the development of the plan and has it been meaningful engagement? The second part of my first question is, do you feel that the plan takes into account the potential socio-economic impacts of the proposed actions? I'll probably ask Caroline first of all, because you're nearest to me to go first, and then we'll probably move on out. Before you head off on it, what I would say to you, there's quite a lot of people, there's a panel of five as it were, so if somebody said something that you would say, it is absolutely acceptable for you to say, well I agree, and don't repeat it all, otherwise I'm not going to get through all my questions. But if you don't agree then obviously, and you want to come in and you haven't been brought in, just raise your hand. Caroline, sorry. Thank you, thank you committee, and thanks for the opportunity to be here this morning. To answer the question, the RDPI has not been involved to my knowledge in the preparation of this delivery plan, but we have been involved in some of the other specific actions that are part of the plan. For example, on the technical advice group, co-ordinated by the planning team in the Scottish Government, which has just produced its draft on biodiversity guidance on policy 3 in NPR4. No, it's the short answer to the engagement in this particular document, but we are engaged in activities on parts of the actions that are in this. On the second part of your question about socio-economic impacts, one of the things that strikes us about the delivery plan at the moment is that it doesn't say very much about areas which are very deficient in nature. This is a policy approach that other places have used, for example in London. They've mapped nature-deficient places, and that is a starting point for interventions. I think that this concerns us in a sense that some of the urban environments are not represented in this action plan. Urban environments which are currently very deficient in nature, and where the poorest or most marginalised communities might be living, and where the opportunity for intervention and action on biodiversity is really great, because there's nothing very, very little out of the moment. I think that there's something about that that's missing from this plan. I'm sure that I can expand on that, but I don't want to use that too much time. Hello, and thank you for having NFUS along to the committee. I would say that, in terms of engagement, yes and no, NFUS is quite well engaged with NatureScot and with the Scottish Government on the development of this plan, and farmers and crofters are obviously crucial to solving the biodiversity crisis, so it's essential that we have that engagement. On the one hand, yes, we are engaged, but I don't think that the depth and the breadth of engagement was enough. I think that farming and agriculture is such a broad sector. We have so many different farm types, farm sizes, farm farming practices in Scotland that, to fully engage with the whole sector, that actually needed to be a bit better. I lead our environment and land use committee. That's made up of farmers from all across Scotland and represents different farming types. They were the committee that led on responding to this consultation. I engage with them quite a lot on this. What we did was actually did our own engagement. We spoke with our environment and land use committee and delivered those results back to NatureScot and back to the Scottish Government about what we would like to see going forward. That process isn't just going to stop there. It's not going to stop when the deadline for this consultation closed. We are going to continue that into this year. What we are going to do is look at those delivery plan actions a bit further in the first half of this year. We are going to undertake focus groups with our members across Scotland. We are going to feed those results back to NatureScot and see what more can be done to engage on that plan. We are very happy to share with the committee the results of those focus groups. Yes, farmers are involved and yes, NFUS has been involved in the engagement of this plan. We will go well further in order to get the wide depth and breadth of farming practices and experiences and take that into account. We think that the timelines for consultation are very short. The 12 weeks or 14 weeks or however long it was at the end of last year. That's just not long enough for organisations to fully engage on all of the 150 or so actions in the delivery plan. The timelines are challenging. We think that it's crucial that the Scottish Government and NatureScot don't close the door at the end of the consultation period. They keep up that engagement. If that's not forthcoming from then, NFUS and organisations will do that ourselves and make sure that our members are heard. In terms of the socio-economic impact, that is a concern as well. Farmers, farming in rural communities, farming is undergoing a lot of pressures at the minute for being asked to deliver on climate, nature, food, biodiversity and rural communities. There are a lot of farmers being asked to deliver and we want to make sure that the socio-economic impacts are well and truly understood so that we can mitigate those in terms of going forward. Thank you. Hi, and thanks for having me here and thanks for the questions. It's a good one. The previous Scottish Biodiversity Strategy, which was chaired by the Cabinet Secretary and had on it representatives from NFUS, from COSLA, local authorities and from Environmental, NGOs, Scottish Environment, Link, RSPB and Scottish Wildlife Trust. It was a very collegiate approach and that was the top table of biodiversity in this country. Since then, there has been an opportunity to work with the Scottish Biodiversity Committee and the Scottish Biodiversity Committee on Biodiversity in this country. Since then, there has been an absolute sea change in the engagement of non-government stakeholders in the development of this plan. So there was to begin with, for a lengthy initial period of development of this plan, very little engagement directly with environmental NGOs, which is problematic in several fronts because we do have expertise in our employees and, indeed, in our volunteers. We are bound to be quite important delivery partners for all of this because we have, for example, we can access funding that Government bodies can't access. We have delivery capacity on the ground that Scottish Wildlife Trust, RSPB, has people out there employed in Scotland in the right areas for biodiversity. This has been quite a long-running point that we have been trying to make to Government to feel that our engagement hasn't been sufficient. Indeed, we are told by external funders, such as the National Heritage Lottery Fund, for example, that they really need Government and NGOs to come together with an agreed plan to make sure that your priorities align and then come with a coherent ask to us. They are being very explicit about that. It does make it quite difficult. I suspect that what has happened is that there has been a very serious attempt to mainstream biodiversity across Government in the development of this plan. I think that an awful lot of that engagement has been within the Government family. We are told by NatureScot that that is why it's been really difficult to engage the non-Government family. Maybe we'll come on to that, but I think that the success in that endeavour has perhaps been a little bit patchy. I think that, as an environmental NGO, we have been held rather arm's-length until the latter stages, when there were a series of workshops that were very constructive and which we were very grateful for, and we had a chance to input laterally. Broadly speaking, this is not the kind of co-designed delivery plan that we really anticipated and looked forward to. Maybe there will be some teething troubles and some things to address in response to that. On the second point, the socio-economic impacts, it's a massive question. Biodiversity loss is a global crisis, and Scotland is part of it. The intergovernmental panel on biodiversity and ecosystem services, which is the biodiversity equivalent of the IPCC for climate change, has said that we're losing biodiversity at a rate faster than ever before in human history and has been absolutely crystal clear that this is an emergency in terms of the welfare of the living world, but also human welfare and economy as well. In order to address it, changes are going to have to be made and they will have socio-economic impacts. Arguably, one could say that one expects there to be socio-economic impacts of the strategy, and if they aren't there, it probably isn't working. It remains to be seen what those impacts will be because implementation is going to be everything. With that previous strategy that I talked about, it was actually pretty good in our view. The problem was that it just wasn't implemented, so we have the situation where we're continuing to lose biodiversity in this country. 24 per cent average species abundance of wildlife decline since 1994. That's a quarter since 1994, which is really hugely significant. It's an on-going biodiversity decline, which we know from the State of Nature report, which was published just a few weeks ago. So, yeah, socio-economic impacts is something that I think we can expect, but they can be positive in our view. Just before we move on, you mentioned the engagement that maybe wasn't there at the start of the process, but it has improved. So, do you think it's now fixed, or is there still more that the Government can do to improve that engagement as we go through this? The delivery plan points to a governance structure that involves a strategic biodiversity council, but it's not actually clear who's going to be on it. There's another body which is proposed, which is an operational delivery board. What it seems to be is that non-government actors, non-government delivery partners will be part of the operational delivery board, but not the strategic biodiversity council. I may be wrong in that, but that's our reading of it. We actually think it would be much better to have non-government representatives, senior representatives, on that strategic biodiversity council so that we can make sure that our organisational priorities and Government's priorities for biodiversity align in the same places to do the same actions, that we agree the same ecosystems and species are the priorities for Scotland. That's partly under way, so one thing that's been really good is the species at risk initiative that NatureScot are running, which has been very collegiate, and we are agreeing amongst a cross-sectoral group what are the species that most need conservation in Scotland, so on species we're doing quite well. I think it's a bit way to go in more general governance, but NGO membership and wider non-government membership of the strategic biodiversity council is a way that could be fixed. Thank you, Bruce. Taking your point, I will just agree with everything that Paul said, but also on the engagement front. I think there's two things that Sarah highlighted. There's the kind of member engagement, so I think beyond the policy level staff within RSPB, NFUS, Scottish Wildlife Trust and others, this has had very little filter through to the general public, and I think that's something we really need to address. We've seen this in things like HPMAs and everything. We need to get better at that direct engagement, and I completely agree with Sarah that the timeframes to deal with this, I can't remember how long it ended up being, 105-page consultation that our response ran to over 65 pages in trying to get back to the Government on one. I'd be amazed if anyone within the Government has got enough time to read all this, but we felt like we really needed to get it down and make our points. We need to get better at condensing some of these things and getting public feedback in it. Engagement, certainly from our perspective, as Paul says, it definitely did improve, and I specifically want to mention Suhansom at NatureScot, putting a load of work trying to get feedback from a whole range of different stakeholders and really compiling that into the final document that we saw. The difference that I've seen with something like the agricultural process is we've seen quite a structured way for people from industry to feed into the development of what we've now seen as the initial bill. We didn't really have the same when we've been producing this biodiversity framework, which includes the natural environment bill, and I'd like to move towards that and agree with what Paul says. I think NGOs and other delivery partners need to be on that oversight board. On your question about socioeconomic impacts, impacts go both ways, so we also need to be aware of the massive potential benefits of investing in biodiversity. A lower end estimate is that you get about £1.35 return on investment. At the higher end, it's about £15 return on investment for investments in the natural world. As well as potential socioeconomic negative impacts that might be cost of businesses in the short term, we need to look at the long term benefits. The primary benefit being the continuation of life on earth. I know it seems a little bit like I might be overstating things here, but Paul is right. The at-best report is not glowing. We're 25th from the bottom on the Biodiversity and Taxness Index. We need to turn those things around and we need to bear that in mind. Crucial to this, we need to see the Biodiversity Investment Plan that is promised in this document, but I really want to see a timeframe for that. Within the consultation document itself, I was slightly worried that that seemed to make reference to that only being about the use of the Nature Restoration Fund, which is public money that NatureScot administers and uses for projects. A Biodiversity Investment Plan, to my mind, needs to include the whole range of potential funding sources so that we can be aware where those might come from and see how they might play their part, because the Scottish Government signals quite strongly that they want to see a range of sources pay for some of the actions that are in this plan. Thank you. Elsa, any to add? Elsa, you're muted at the moment. I hope you're muted. To contribute today. I think I will pick up on some of the points. Sorry, can you hear me okay? We can now, but we missed the very first part, and I would hate if you didn't get your most salient point across. Do you want to start again? Always takes me about a minute to get to the salient point, so you're fine. No, thanks for the opportunity to contribute today. Now, I just really wanted to pick up on some of the points that Bruce had made there around that element of direct engagement and certainly from a community landowners perspective. We haven't had any detailed engagement on either the strategy or the delivery plan. I can't really speak for a wider community engagement, but as far as I'm aware, that hasn't happened. Of course, so much of the success of the delivery of the strategy will be done at a local level. I think there's quite a bit of work to be done around the thinking of how that could happen and will be successful. So I really appreciate the opportunity to input further on either that strategic board level or at other levels in terms of delivery. I think there's lots of great examples of how community organisations are delivering on habitat and species work at a local level. I'm really happy to talk about some of those today. There are mechanisms that do work and that do exist. I think they need to be highlighted in any delivery strategy because, again, coming to your second point, they do address some of those socio-economic impacts that Douglas Robinson mentioned there and that others have mentioned in terms of getting that balance right between ensuring that we protect and enhance Scotland's biodiversity, but the local socio-economic impacts can also be maximised. Obviously, Scottish Government have a number of priorities around community wealth building and land reform and community empowerment, and I think getting the balance between all of those will be really critical in the delivery plan at the moment doesn't necessarily look in detail of how that can be delivered, but there are mechanisms, as I say, for doing that. So it would be interesting to have the opportunity to talk about what some of those mechanisms are and how they can be scaled up within the resources that we have available. Thank you. Douglas, just before you go on to the next question, I'm just concerned and I'll float this out here to start with. After the first question, which took quite a lot of time to get all your answers in, I'm working out that we've got three hours' worth of answers to come back, and we don't have three hours' worth of time to say, I am going to push you continually during the meeting to be as brief as possible, and I've started off 2024 on a sharp note on that, Douglas. I'm sure the first question always takes the longest to give me now. Next question I had was around, when we heard from the marine stakeholders, there was mixed views that many of the targets and actions were not smart and that the plan lacks significant new commitments in light of government's commitment to a step change. So I get the question for you is, are there significant new commitments in the plan relating to terrestrial biodiversity, and does it set out smart targets? Who wants to maybe say that at this time? Sure. I would completely agree with the witnesses in the marine session and that the plans are not smart. We actually think that there is a lot of detail that is missing in this delivery plan. How will they be smart? How will they work in practice? What will they actually mean for active farming businesses? There's also missing detail around what funding will be allocated to each action and from which budget, crucially who's responsible for leading on each action to ensure it's achieved timelines. It's not just about an end date, it's about the pathway of how we get there and how, crucially as well, how policies will tie in with other policies, strategies and commitments, not least ag bill, but other kind of legislation and strategies and policies coming down the line. We would completely echo what has been said before in that there is a lack of detail in there. In terms of whether that's going to create a step change, we really struggle to see how a change is going to be made without that detail. When we are engaging our farmers, when we are engaging our members, the main thing that they want to know is what will this mean for me, how will this affect how I farm and we don't feel like that detail is there. I really struggle to understand how we can make the change that is needed to be made in terms of addressing biodiversity loss and in restoring nature without that detail. Paul, can I maybe come to you on that same question because you mentioned the last strategy maybe not having the smart target set. I agree with what Sarah has said. You are going to get this as a uniform response and I think that nature's got to be aware that there's a lack of smart targets. There is too much in our view reference to let's have another plan, let's have another strategy, let's develop another strategy, which is simply too vague. There's no real specifics that people can actually work with. There's a lack of a spatial element to the delivery plan. It's not really clear what the priorities are and where and which parts of Scotland are going to be important for which ecosystems and which species. It's an exercise that needs to be undertaken. It can be done quite quickly. We know that. It's known across the sector. We think that this can be done quickly but it needs to be done quite urgently. Again, we're having this issue of an effort being made to mainstream biodiversity across Government and it being quite problematic to get other bits of Government that aren't involved directly in biodiversity at the moment, but the great hope for mainstreaming must be the legally binding targets for nature, which are signalled for the natural environment bill, which is due later this year, which is a real opportunity to mainstream biodiversity across Government and actually develop some of those specifics. From our point of view, the delivery plan does look rather like what the strategy should be and the delivery plan, the real meat of the detail. To be honest, the minister said that it would be in the delivery plan in the response to the letter from the committee back in September or October. We actually think that it isn't quite there yet. Anyone else like to add in? Carly? You asked a question about whether there are new commitments in here and it's very hard to judge that because the delivery plan does not map itself on to existing actions in a coherent or consistent way. Just to give you one example, there is mention in here about soils and new guidance for developers about protection of soils. The article supports that, but it is also already a policy and national planning framework for, so it's policy number five, I believe, on soils. The question is, is the action in the delivery plan additional to the work that should be happening around policy five and NPF four, or is it the same thing? It's hard to judge, particularly as someone coming with knowledge about certain parts of this work and this world, looking at it across the board. I know that there are some things in here which are already happening and have already been delivered of some things that have been published already that are in this action plan. It's very hard because the delivery plan itself does not map what's existing and it should do, I think. I would like to agree with all that. I'd also think that there is a real place to go through after mapping out what is new commitment and what's already existing commitment and work out all this into account. Does this take us to where we need to be for basically the 20-30 target of reversing declines? It's not apparent from that list of actions if that has been carried out and we know that we are going to get to a place where we've reversed declines. I think I'll leave it there in the interests of time. Thank you. I'll go on to my last question then, convener. It's been mentioned already in terms of mainstreaming. The people's plan for nature calls for more mainstreaming of nature into decision making, more leadership and more government accountability. Does the draft delivery plan provide for more mainstreaming of biodiversity and what would successful mainstreaming look like? We want to pick up on that. Bruce, it does kind of relate to your last question in that the delivery organisations are not easily identifiable and mapped against the actions. It's hard to say who would be taking a lead and who would be engaging on those specific topics. So it's very difficult to say if it's been properly mainstreamed and because it's difficult to say I suspect that we have got a real uphill struggle to try and mainstream this stuff across government. When I look at the smart targets, if we take the example of agriculture, it looks like a lot of the stuff that's in the Scottish Government's vision for agriculture statement has just been mapped across into these actions which doesn't suggest there's been a back and forth dialogue between biodiversity side of the house and agriculture colleagues. It looks like the environment side of things has just taken the environmental ambitions within the existing strategy so I'd question if it's had much of an impact on that. In terms of mainstreaming you still think there's a good way to go? Paul? I want to make one point that I think is quite important that this delivery plan is part of a huge biodiversity framework that goes well beyond it. It was a massive consultation that ended in December. It's not all bad and there are indeed some bits of the delivery plan which are really quite specific and I'm thinking about deer for example but it's very specific about numbers about broadly speaking what needs to happen and it's ambitious and we really welcome it. The difficulty is in that mainstreaming and I think it is a very very challenging thing to achieve because biodiversity has been completely siloed to date. It's been seen as a very specialist thing that a little branch of government does alongside SNH Stoke, NatureScot and we can sort of leave it to that but it really needs to be integrated. It has to integrate with agricultural policy but as Bruce said what we've got in the delivery plan is basically a rehash of what is already committed to or is about to be committed to and that is a problem that's not going to deliver added value. Okay, thank you. On to the next question so I'm sorry I've got to be quite tight on them Jackie, the next question has come from you. Okay thank you convener would it be helpful if I just asked people to raise their hands if they want to answer my question? Yes, I'm getting the feeling from this panel that they'll all raise your hands but you can certainly try if you want to. Okay Grant, good morning panel thank you very much for coming along. The objective of the draft strategy is to accelerate the restoration and regeneration of the ecosystem. Do you think that the draft plan sets out a clear priority pathway when you look through the key actions does it provide that and what do you think actually needs to happen on the ground to support the delivery? Bruce, I'm going to go to you because you've caught my eye. I do think that there is a prioritisation exercise to be done if you were to look at this from the perspective of someone on the ground so within a local authority if we take the nature networks element of this I would find it very difficult to know what had to be done by when what my duties were around reporting was this more important than my responsibilities around deer management it would be very hard for me to interpret that so I think there needs to be prioritisation and I understand why that has been very difficult to do because the timeframes in which this has been developed and Paul says it's not by any means all bad I want to really support the overall ambition here we're just trying to help with suggestions and one major improvement that can be made is that prioritisation and second of all providing appropriate guidance for the relevant delivery partners so they can help work out what has to be done and by when. I think it would be interesting for communities to have a much clearer idea of that prioritisation and as Bruce has just said there how that can be delivered because we know from our membership that there's a huge interest in getting more engaged in this and those local people that are at their very sharp end of habitat and species loss really do want to get engaged but at the moment as we said in the first question there hasn't been much consultation and engagement at a local level so opportunities within the delivery plan to really focus on how community led action can contribute would be very helpful. Okay thank you. Caroline and then Sarah. Yes, just on this mainstreaming I think national planning framework and a very good job mainstreaming biodiversity and the nature crisis into the planning system and that's very very clear in policy one but I think this is where this plan doesn't interact with that in a coherent consistent way so for example there are questions about local place plans, local development plans do they should they be doing more should they be doing and how does this delivery plan interact with the guidance that's emerging around the preparation of those types of strategies so that planning can help and do its parts in relation to protecting existing biodiversity and enhancing providing for those spatial networks, the nature networks and the 30x30 protections but also this creating building where should we put new nature, where should we build biodiversity and I think there are questions about that that many of our members and practitioners are wanting answers to and this doesn't help so that spatial side of things but also the timeline, what are the priorities where do interventions need to be happening and who needs to be doing it so going back to the smart objectives and that need for that extra level of detail around the actions who's leading, when are they doing it what's the timeline, what's the priority and where are the resources and do you think that the planning needs more power to their elbow when it comes to that? Definitely and they certainly need more funding and resource we published an assessment of resourcing in the planning system just in December and the number of local authority planners in Scotland is the lowest it's been for five years and we know budgets are being cut and at the same time we have extra duties under the planning act and NPF4 so biodiversity on top of that is very hard in a sector which is really under pressure and we know there's a skills issue our members are they know about biodiversity net gain I'm going to leave it off here because I asked if I was proud of the elbow and we have heard from skills I'm sorry if I sound rude but I'm trying to get everybody in Sarah, would you like to say that the prioritisation exercise is needed and it needs to go a lot but I think it's also important to say that it shouldn't be prescriptive and in terms of nature restoration we almost think that there should be two kind of elements to it when it comes to farming and crofting every farm is going to have potential to deliver for a climate and deliver for nature but what each farm does could be different and so we want farmers to be empowered and to have the ability to choose what is right for their farm and that's an important part of designing this action plan and designing measures within the agricultural bill as well every farmer should be able to play its part but what that is may differ on the landscape scale on a kind of catchment scale we do need to have that wider picture of ensuring that there's not knock-on impacts or unintended consequences so you almost need that kind of dual level of what's right for the individual farm but also what's happening at that kind of wider holistic scale and I do think that's missing we do need more of a strategic land use planning in Scotland to ensure that that is the case and I think it's also important to mention when we talk about taking action and moving forward that farmers are already doing really good things there's a lot of work in this area that's already been done we're not starting from zero there's a lot of work that's been done out there so it's more about encouraging, empowering inspiring people to go further in that sense slightly if I can on the mainstreaming point as well because it ties into this question is that it really shows the need that it's not just farmers and crofters that are responsible for solving this issue it does require a whole society approach we need local authorities, we need members of the public we need other bodies to to play a part in this as well so I think that that also plays into the importance of a landscape holistic scale approach okay, thank you we'll go on to the next question but I'm going to be fair and come to Paul first if that's okay so, Paul, if you would like to just add anything in that you really want to get in for the first question then please feel free the plan highlights the progress that's already been made with woodland and peatland restoration programmes but we know that there's still challenges in meeting those targets and spending the committed budgets in this area what needs to happen when they come in five years to accelerate the progress of this so that we can get things going for peatland specifically or do you mean across the board for biodiversity? well, woodland, peatland, but if you'd like to answer for across the board feel free I think that relates to your first question so biodiversity comprises species and the species come together to form ecosystems which are dynamic living systems and all of those in Scotland have some sort of human element and indeed some of them are made by farming maca grasslands in the western isles for example so it's profoundly linked through to our society and to our economy the plan signals a programme of ecosystem restoration and then a programme of species recovery for those species that need the targeted individual action and that is something we called for right from the start and it was included fairly late in the process and therefore we have it's just mentioned in the strategy and I think there's a list of ecosystems that's a footnote in one of the pages so it's not really properly developed as the other panel members have said it really needs a lot more thinking around what's specific and I think that needs to be geographically specific which I think would work to Sarah's point about farmers and crops the different parts of Scotland need to need to know what they can deliver and to input to that process so I think there's real scope for that It's dependent on where they live, is that what you mean? Absolutely, yeah, so it's the different parts of Scotland so you couldn't have a maca programme in the east coast of Scotland because you don't get maca in the east coast of Scotland as one example and it's the same for all other ecosystems we need broadly to figure out what the priorities are where we're looking for from this delivery plan that's what we haven't really got yet but I do think we're on the way and I just want to underscore that there's opportunities here for society, for economy so the government has multiple initiatives established at the moment for training but those could really work to deliver by addressing we could have training for land management advisers who help farmers and crofters to do the right thing for the priorities in their area we could have training for new deer stalkers so the money that's spent on ffencing woodland is instead put into young people training as high welfare standard deer stalkers ecosystem restoration contractors invasive non-native species control contractors and experts biodiversity monitoring this could all be integrated into a government training programme to help to deliver the stuff and deliver those green jobs that the country so badly needs particularly in rural areas so I think it's great scope here but it's just not quite signalled in the delivery plan yet so what I'm hearing from you is you would like to see geographic being rather than as well as sorry not rather than key sectors and groups to be all added the two automatically go hand in hand with that comment would anybody else like to add anything in because I think Paul's just answered my third question as well I think Paul's just went and answered my third question I'm happy because I know that you're going to come in with a few supplementaries aren't you I've just got one supplementary one broad supplementary is you talk about targets and achieving and you've talked about zoning and I understand that woodland targets that since 2018 not one of them has been met by the government in fact we have only reached 80% if you talk them all up and if you talk them all up before they adjusted the targets downwards they probably only reached about 65% of all the woodland that should have been created in Scotland and we've just seen in the budget a 45% cut in woodland grant scheme monies so we also know that when it comes to peatland we're not spending the money that we need to spend on peatland because we can't get the contractors to do the work so not enough money not enough contractors great ambitions but no delivery Sarah how are we going to come round that I think everything that you said is absolutely correct and I think a lot of our members in fact most of our members would agree with that tree planting peatland are really good examples where there is those nationwide targets and that's ambition and that's good but at risk of repeating myself what I have said about for individual farms to decide what is relevant and what's appropriate for their individual farms and I think a large part of what is missing from this plan and what is missing from land use decisions in Scotland generally is the where we can have targets but where are they going to be and what knock-on impacts will they have and I think we do need to move past farming versus forestry it's a debate that's been rumbling on for quite some time but we do have difficult questions that need answered and I suppose that plays into the socio-economic impact side of things there will be changes and there will be changes to land use in Scotland because of these difficult decisions but we have to be conscious of that I think another reason why maybe we're not meeting these targets and going forward is we would like uncertainty around certain policies we have got many different things coming down the line we've got a new agricultural bill that's going to be in place in the next few years perhaps people are waiting to see what that's going to look like in full before making decisions I think asking people to do something before all the detail is realised is there's a lot of risk there and I think when it comes to funding and when it comes to grant schemes those could be better for a start I think there needs to be more de-risking of these activities for farmers and crofters so that they're incentivised to take up those activities so I suppose that's kind of a roundabout way of saying that we do need all of these things we need the funding, we need appropriate grant schemes, we need incentives but we also need certainty in terms of policy clarity and policy detail as well Paul, RSPB big landowners in Scotland huge tracts of land do they need it de-risking to do the right thing or are they going to get on and do it and create more woodlands on some of their reserves we're really actively involved with that and not just on our reserves but beyond our reserves as well so for example we've got a project in Morvern which is about re-establishing Scotland's rainforest on the entire peninsula we're focusing on the peninsula because it's ecologically defendable so you can clear roaded engine and you've got a good chance to secure by your security but you talk about targets convener, we've had biodiversity targets since 1992 and we have failed to meet all of them so the failure to meet targets is very very familiar for people in our sector and I guess this is what we are talking about in terms of mainstreaming and in terms of integration of these targets there is a bit of a rush at the moment actually to secure planting and harvesting targets for trees which is leading to an intensification of forestry practice and sometimes we fear wrong tree in the wrong place so actually may have negative outcomes for biodiversity and of course we have plantations in ancient woodland which needs to be treated as ancient woodlands so there's a huge way to go and that's why we keep coming back to this kind of mainstream point which is until this becomes a widely recognised political imperative across all bits of government including agriculture, forestry, marine etc we aren't really going to have a meaningful biodiversity strategy that can meet these targets biodiversity is extremely complex extremely far reaching and really touches people's lives when you're talking about the way land is managed it affects businesses it affects industries and that is the challenge and that's the challenge frankly we haven't managed to meet yet I'm not saying it's easy but there's a way to go still with this delivery plan I think Bruce, I'll bring you in very briefly but it seems to me that both of you are saying that whilst we haven't reached the targets maybe the old scheme of local biodiversity action plans if they've been properly implemented on the way forward, Bruce I think there's definitely an important place for BAPS very important tool when we're talking about the targets at a national level I think a step change that we've seen is this move to put climate and nature on the same pedestal and I think previously there has been some mistakes made so for example in a rush to plant a certain type of tree just to meet out considering biodiversity impacts and it's difficult it's going to be much harder but we need to consider both otherwise we're not going to we're not going to do it properly and we're not going to meet our long-term targets thank you and I'm sure somewhere in there we'll consider what we're going to eat as well so the next questions come from Mark Ruskell Mark so I was going to ask about the meeting of the 30x30 target that big international overreaching target and whether there's enough clarity in the strategy about the pathway to meeting that but I was just reflecting on some of your answers earlier on and I suppose to kind of summarise what I'm hearing is you know the NGOs on the panel don't feel there's enough you know enough detail within this strategy so we've got high level strategy we've got high level delivery plan but the detail is really lacking but then I also heard from yourself Sarah that your members feel that there can't be too prescriptive at this point as well so in terms of delivery of that 30x30 what do you think is needed and is there enough of that within the delivery plan at the moment to give that certainty do you want to start Sarah? so I think to answer your question about is the 30x30 target clear I don't think it is at all I think the framework that's in the biodiversity in this concentration in the form it was it wasn't clear at all what that would actually mean it's not clear where that 30% will be and if that is going to be if there is a proportion of that on farmland what that will mean for farmers and crofters how it will impact active farming so I think that's a very brief response in that no it's not clear in terms of what is needed I can understand that this may be contradictory but I think we do need stronger definitions but we don't want it to be too prescriptive so we maybe need stronger definitions around even things like protect, restore what is that going to mean for a farmer in practice but on that flipside as I've mentioned we don't want it to be too prescriptive that you have to do a certain thing and you have to meet a certain target I think what we're hearing more and more is that biodiversity in nature is so complex and what we want to focus on more is the actions rather than necessarily the outcomes a farmer, a crofter, whoever can do all the right things if there's evidence there that creating a certain habitat provides a certain species of course that's what should be supported but with all the will in the world that may not lead to biodiversity increase or it may not lead to a specific species increasing on that land and we don't think that that should be a punitive measure that shouldn't be punished that it should be rewarded if you're doing the actions that are right so it's sort of again a dual approach there we need more clarity on what that 30x30 means, what it's going to mean for farmers but at the same time it shouldn't be rigid, it shouldn't be prescriptive it should be flexible enough for farmers to be empowered to choose what's right for their farm so I think much more detail on that Isn't the danger there Sarah that nothing happens as a result of that but at the end of the day somebody needs to look at a particular area be it Cairngorms or Fife or whatever particular catchment and somebody on the ground needs to make decisions about what they're going to invest in Absolutely and what are those targets so how do you meet 30x30 on the ground to the satisfaction of your members to give them the clarity without being too prescriptive about what they need to be investing in I think that's why you need the holistic landscape scale view of things you know who's doing what in this landscape and is it meeting the broader picture and then at an individual level people are doing what's best for their farm it's never going to be perfect nature is not perfect and biodiversity is complex by its nature so you know having prescriptive targets and getting every farm to do to put x amount of their land aside that may not be suitable for every farm so it's about getting the individual to do what's right for them I don't agree with the fact that that means nothing will change and that we'll have the status quo because people are already doing good things for nature whether that's in the west with our less favored areas they're undertaking traditional grazing management and good farming techniques in the west we've got our combinable crops and our arable farmers who are doing good things around integrated pest management things are already under way so we're going to go backwards or we're going to stall because we're not setting down prescriptive outcomes things are moving forward and what we need to make clear as well is that when farmers undertake these actions are good for nature they're also good for the business they're good for climate, they're good for rural communities so highlighting those combined benefits is a positive so I don't think things are just going to stay the same farmers know that things are changing and we are moving forward Who else would like to come in so this is about 30-30 how do we actually deliver on the ground apple? Just to say that there are positive things happening on the ground but we are still losing nature at a completely unacceptable rate we know this from the state of nature report species and habitat loss continues and the majority of Scotland is farmed so there's an undoubtable link and a level of prescription is completely unavoidable so I'm afraid it's going to be needed if we're going to make the kind of progress which is about halting biodiversity loss on 30-30 I'm really glad that you signalled this as being a global initiative this is a global initiative of which Scotland is just one part but I do think there's some hope for the kind of approach you're calling for Sarah in terms of current protected areas the first point I want to make is it does not mean to all human activity in those areas indeed some of them, like the macker special areas of conservation I was talking about earlier the definition of macker has agriculture right front and centre in there and without those extensive cattle-based crofting systems there would be no macker and we have 70% of the world complement of macker in Scotland so it's a really significant thing so protected areas allow forestry and how farming to continue as long as it doesn't damage the features for which that area is designated but there's another approach which is going to be brought in with 30 x 30 which is what they call OECMs which is other effective land-based conservation measures and these can be different so these can involve much more engagement with communities, with land managers on the ground in terms of and what the important features will be they can't be weaker in terms of the delivery of biodiversity and I do think delivery of real species, real habitats, progress is what is required by this delivery plan it's not just oh we can do some stuff that looks good and then that will tick the box I don't think it does that, we do need to actually halt biodiversity loss but we can do it with a more creative way of approaching the 30 target which I think is signalled in the biodiversity framework actually I think that's quite encouraging and I look forward to seeing how these OECMs are developed and how much they can contribute towards that Scotland's playing its part in the global 30 x 30 initiative That detail, are you saying Paul, you would expect to see that in this delivery plan or are there actually other plans be them regional or species specific that provides that clarity because it feels like you won't see everything in the plan every action, every target everything right now and I'm just wondering what is the level that's appropriate to see within this plan at this point The point that Sarah made about the land use strategy that was an initiative that kind of stalled but it was a really positive move forward in our view and I think across the link NGOs in terms of what's important where how we can combine the imperative for food security the imperative for planting for carbon offsetting and the priority for biodiversity it was a real opportunity to do that and I do think I would agree with NFUS that that's something we need to revisit Bruce, Caroline, Elsa do you want to come in on this? I agree with all that we really need to get on top of this because we're a land use planning tool so we've got local nature networks an aspiration for a national nature network regional land use partnerships the overall land use strategy river basin management plans something needs to bring these all together I suggest a national ecological network setting priorities or a national nature network would really help here and then you can get the bottom up helping to deliver that that's something that needs to happen it's pretty obvious that with 30x30 in the title we're at the start of 2024 there's not a lot of time to do this so the urgency thing really can't be understated I know that presents problems but we really need to get on and do this and set up the governance structures so that we can understand how this is going to be rolled out Rylan, you want to come in could I just ask just as a supplementary as part of that do you want to see that map based or just all in documents, Caroline? That would be fantastic because then we can move into the digital side of things where you can do that sort of sieve mapping and looking at where opportunities for interventions might be and we get a better sense of the where these things might be happening I just agree we need all of these things to line up and of course I would also add in local place plans and development plans and green infrastructure strategies and open space strategies and all of those other things to interact with this by diversity work While we are drawing lines on a map I can also raise the topic of national parks as well briefly I would like to get your reflections on the designation for at least one new national park how that can contribute to these targets and also your reflections on how national parks are working at the moment are they actually delivering effectively for this agenda and not what needs to change so brief reflections on that would be useful Elsa, I don't know if you would like to come in on this or we can go to other panel members Thank you just very briefly again I think there are some really good examples of work in Cangor and Loch Lomond where communities are being engaged at a very local level in terms of how they can contribute to this agenda which the national park authorities are investing in enabling them to do that so I think if there was to be a third national park then the lessons of what's worked needs to be transferred over to that to ensure that local people can have some meaningful engagement and intervention in this rather than as we talked about at the very beginning being the last people to be considered Thank you Thanks Our position on national parks is clear we believe that food production and farming is integral to Scotland's rural economy and that shouldn't be forgotten or ignored, in fact it should be central to existing and any new national parks Many of our members don't feel that the two existing national parks have made a positive contribution for farming and are therefore sceptical about the creation of new ones however we do realise that this is a policy that is being pursued and that we are likely to see a new national park so we want to see meaningful and positive local engagement with the local community not just specific sectors but all sectors to ensure that there is success going forward We would like to see national parks delivering better for nature I think that as Ailsa said there have been some great examples of really positive action and really positive community engagement in Cairngorms and in Loch Lomond but it's not entirely what we would expect of a national park and we do think that the restoration of ecosystems really has to be given a serious priority in national parks I think that's what people expect I think that's what the public expect Let's not forget that wild isle series in which Scotland really was the star on TV, 10.7 million viewers This is a quite big deal for the public in terms of national mental wellbeing I would actually argue I think that our national parks really need to deliver for that and I just want to touch on this mapping point I totally agree that mapping is the approach to this kind of spatial element that we need to this but just a plea that it doesn't it's not a new five year exercise that's undertaken because it could so easily swallow up so much time we need to find a really streamlined route to actually putting down on paper what we know already because we know it, that's just a plea The maps exist basically they're ready to be rolled out I hear so much agreement around the room that this is the way forward it would be nice to see that There's also a proposal in here for six priority woodland areas between 10 and 50,000 hectares Sorry, it's in national parks It's interesting to see the comparison people have talked to the pros and cons from a community perspective of those areas which would probably focus on deer management with the woodland element versus the designation for a national park so we've purposely taken the decision to not put forward areas for consideration of national parks because we think that that really has to be from communities in order for them to be successful Caroline, any thoughts on that? We don't have a strong position on the extra national park or what I know Bob, you want things going on on nature networks Do you want to go on nature networks? We've both got an interest in nature networks and I suppose that you've touched already a little bit on that Bruce, I might come to you first as to how you see this rolling out because the responsibility is very much for local councils to develop this Do councils actually have all the powers and tools to be able to do that? I think that your own organisation was pushing initially for a big overarching national network rather than 32 local networks Where do you think the state of play is in terms of nature networks being a real driver for people? In the sands of time Scottish Wildlife Trust was really pushing and others at RSVB in the Scottish Environment link for a national approach not in any way completely top down but helping to provide that prioritisation that we've talked about for nature because it's so important There was commitments to that in previous strategies and planning frameworks and it's just never happened So we're at a stage now that I think it will happen, it's just taken 10 years to get to this stage The top down is very important for allowing an overview to let people know what those priorities are We're completely supportive of that being delivered from the bottom up The reason that we think we need overall spatial strategy is just this analogy that I've used a lot of times With a broadband network or a road network we would not just start putting in cable or roundabouts and roads and expect a coherent network It's exactly the same with nature We have to strategically plan where this stuff is if we want to see the ecosystem restoration but also the benefits that that provides to us as well So pollinators, we can't just have the odd little patch of habitat here and there, it needs to be a coherent network so that they can move around have interactions that we'd expect as species So we think that overall strategic approach is very important Your question is to whether local authorities are equipped to deliver that It's going to be very difficult There is patchy coverage of biodiversity expertise within local authorities So that is very important to deliver that Funding is going to be a colossal issue and we also have this lack of guidance currently still around the nature networks that's delivered Now that's hugely improved There's been massive step forward within that but what's been put forward within this document I think we'll get there The problem is the requirement from national planning framework for if you are having to produce a local development plan in the near future I think you would be sort of scratching your head as to what you have to do what a nature network looks like and the big fear is that the temptation would just be to do a very simple map of all the green blobs in your area and sort of say well that's vaguely a nature network and that's not what it's designed to do it's designed to interact with the 30x30 network to deliver this to some restoration I'll probably be talking to some of the blobs in the local area now Bruce to be honest so we know local authorities are tasked with expanding Hansi nature networks by 2030 there's a specific commitment for urban areas which is obviously of interest to me as the MSP for Glasgow, Maryhill and Springburn I know that Glasgow is seeking to designate a further 250 hectares within the city's nature reserves I picked two areas in particular one is the city's emergency at Hamilton hill clay pits which has been transformational for the local area but has also been in partnership with wider urban regeneration which is something I would like to raise with you but also at Caderwood's also on the Forth and Clyde canal which was a dumping ground for old cars and fly tipping which actually has a real biodiversity merit as well as being a real asset so what I wanted to ask is whether witnesses believe and probably Bruce Walston, Dr Brown might be best placed to respond to some of this nature network commitment can be had dual purpose about boosting biodiversity in the way that Mr Walston was talking about but also to enhance the local environment for communities so it's not about natures over there but it's about corridors for communities to enjoy that environment so how do we achieve that dual purpose within what we're looking at currently but I suppose more importantly how can we monitor it to make sure it just delivers it and it's not the blobs on the map I suppose that Mr Walston was talking about so there's two things there there absolutely is the potential for nature networks to do that and we've always advocated an opportunity mapping based approach which is GIS tools to work out where your biodiversity spaces are how you can link them up but what are the opportunities to link them up in the easiest way but also providing multiple benefits and there has been a tool developed through the Scottish Government's work on CivTech which is an AE column where you can map all this stuff and you can look at how it affects different communities where a green space is best to situate so that is all achievable and it's absolutely the way we need to go in the year of such constrained spending getting multiple benefits delivering and biodiversity has the answer to so many of the problems that we're trying to face the health and wellbeing benefits of being close to biodiversity green space have been repeatedly brought forward but they are very difficult to monitor and that's the second part of everything that we're trying to achieve here that the biodiversity data availability at the moment is just very very poor and we need to invest in that and we don't just need to invest in that so that we can tell how many butterflies are in a given area we need to invest in that so that we've got the tools to develop this green economy we can't we can't have positive effects of biodiversity from a new development which is the wording from the national planning framework if we don't know what the baseline biodiversity data for that site is now we need to know baselines and we need to know what the improvements are and what those are delivering for people and those are vital tools for us to understand where we are as a nation not just to understand our ecological position Doctor Brown do you want to comment? I think there's something in here which I was also missing in this delivery plan which is any discussion or recognition of the excellent work that's been happening around the central Scotland green network and Glasgow and Clyde valley is a really great example of a very good strategy to deal on data looking at opportunities for interventions and leading directly to the sorts of projects that you're talking about which are cleaning up polluted environments, providing access to nearby nature for people providing networks for active travel and so on providing a health benefit and hitting those multiple policy targets around climate around resilience around nature, health, wellbeing and biodiversity and there's been lots of excellent work done and one of the things that strikes me as being missing from this is a sense of learning from those previous activities and examples so what have we learnt, what works and how is that reflected in these actions here? I have no idea whether what is measured in relation to this I see Glasgow City Council 37 species action plans in place they're trying to expand their nature networks but what I don't know is anyone measuring what the impact has been on biodiversity clearly you would expect to have been positive but is anyone measuring it in an agreed methodology? My understanding is that the central Scotland green network which is a collaboration local authorities across the central belt that's part of that activity is to deliver and to measure the outputs of those interventions you know by diversity terms as well as other measures So Dr Brown for not seem to target you in relation to this but will that be measured in the same way if there's a project in Aberdeinshire or a project in Dumfries because if there's different methodologies used in different areas how do we have a national strategy and how do we report on the national plan? Absolutely agree that we do need some recognised methodologies for doing this and consistency about the data that's used and available to the people that are doing it whether that's a local authority or another organisation Okay thank you What of this time? I'm not sure Mark did you want to come back in? No I'd like to have three or four hours on this but yeah I don't think we do have the time Unfortunately we are sort of what I would say three quarters of the way through the time and probably 50 per cent through the questions so there'll be a balancing act but not weaning to cut anyone out especially not the deputy convener Ben I'm coming to you next Thank you convener and good morning panel thanks for your time Before I ask my question I just wanted to emphasise the points that my colleague raised around Urban Scotland as somebody who represents a densely populated urban constituency I do think the arguments and the narrative about quality of place and health and wellbeing benefits are much more compelling often than the wider targets and discussions around Montreal treaties and all of which can be quite nebulous sometimes to people so I think it's important that the questions around the benefits of biodiversity in urban Scotland were raised by my colleague but going back to other issues I want to ask some questions around objective 3 embedding in nature positive farming, fishing and forestry and I want to ask do you have confidence that agriculture, forestry and other land management policies are aligned with and will support delivery of the biodiversity delivery plan if so why and if not focusing again on the questions of implementation that were rightly raised earlier what needs to happen in practice to ensure that agriculture forestry and other land management sectors deliver biodiversity gains and that there is a just transition to a more nature friendly position in terms of farming as a mainstream and does the current draft delivery plan support this in terms of I don't know who wants to go first I thought you might see her over to you there was a lot in there so if I missed something out just come back to me but basically we think that these plans can work together we think that farming can deliver on biodiversity we think that it has a crucial role in doing so and the final version of this plan will determine how well they are able to do that what is of concern is that there are so many other policies in the sphere it's a very busy policy strategy legislation landscape that we're in just now and obviously we do have the agricultural bill what is going to be in the final agricultural bill will have an impact on the biodiversity delivery plan and vice versa I suppose so what our main concern is that these are going at different timelines we've got this five year biodiversity delivery plan there's detail that's still missing from that in the agricultural bill there's a stipulation for a five year rural support plan and the way that that's happening the way that the timelines that the agricultural bill is going through Parliament the five years are not going to be the same and so our main concern and we don't think it's an obstacle that can't be overcome if you're running at different timelines is that they're compatible and I think there's a lot more work that needs to be done to ensure that that's so I think one of the main things around making this work as well is around budgeting and the finance that's coming into the agricultural and rural economy sector if we take the agricultural bill and we take the four outcomes that are within it climate, nature, rural communities and food production these are all so so important but we're asking so much of farmers to deliver and it's not to say that they can and it's not to say that they don't want to they most definitely do but they need to be supported in order to do so and so for us the funding that's coming to the sector is going to be crucial on enabling them to deliver it we were disappointed that money has been reallocated from the sector over the past two years we have the assurances that it will be coming back we are still disappointed that it's not being used to support the sector in the past two years as well as that we've had a multi-annual financial commitment from the UK Government since 2019 but that represents a real terms cut in agricultural and rural economy support what we need going forward and what we need to make all these plans and all these strategies work together and to allow farming to deliver is a multi-annual funding commitment we need that support to allow farmers to deliver what they can and what they should be delivering essentially Doctor Walton and I don't know if it'll say Rayburn if you want to come in afterwards Agriculture is 70% of Scotland a huge amount of public money is put into support despite recent reductions it's still a huge budget we broadly speaking believe in public money for public goods and we see the delivery of nature and biodiversity and climate benefits as a public good for everyone in Scotland and in our view we do need to see a significant redistribution of funds in the way they are spent to focus much more on delivering for climate and nature specifically we think tier 1 which is the basic payment should really account for no more than 25% of the budget and 75% of the budget that's 25% each on the other tiers which is tier 2 which is enhanced tier 3 the elective and tier 4 the supporting services and in there some of the really targeted work that's required for the important ecosystems and species which should emerge from the delivery and planning process so I think without a significant shift in how we support agriculture to help farms and crofters to deliver we aren't going to manage to halt biodiversity loss in this country and I just want to say one thing that I do think that for far too many years we have seen a lack of support for the incredibly high nature value farming in the west and particularly on the aisles in terms of the extensive cattle-based crofting system which I said before deliver globally significant biodiversity benefits and we're suffering on the one hand from intensification which is the big driver of biodiversity loss right across Europe and on the other hand abandonment we do think that these communities need the proper levels of support that reflect the public benefits that we are delivering thank you also Leigh Brun, did you want to come in? Thank you, just to be going up Paul's point there about support for crofting communities in particular and the whole scale crofting system and how that's working a great work being done now by the Crofting Commission but enabling more of that land to be brought into the sorts of uses that will deliver these benefits is critical and I think also to look again at some of the subsidy mechanisms particularly around tree planting and woodland restoration could actually deliver against a lot of the objectives we're talking about today but at the moment they're very narrowly focused so I think it comes back to the point that other colleagues have made that this needs to be a whole systems based approach we need to be looking at all of that public subsidy and how we use it better to deliver these outcomes, thank you Thank you Before I go to Mr Wilson my questions focused around alignment and delivery is there anything further in terms of there was some discussion at the beginning about engagement between Government and stakeholders in co-ordination across Government and the challenge of that but the welcome challenge of broadening biodiversity as a cross Government objective either in the answers to come or later if there's anything more that you want to follow up with the committee on that I think that would be useful Mr Wilson, you were wanting to come in Just on the budget side of things we aren't really used to the agriculture budget changing that much in previous years for obvious reasons and we're going to see more and more pressure on agriculture budgets for one of the better word compete with other public spending priorities and it's essential that we are making sure and well articulating the reason that we need to maintain these budgets for the rural portfolio and delivery on nature and climate is such a vital part of that that we need to make sure that it's well understood that farming does at the moment but can do much more to deliver for those huge priorities as well as producing food and there is that alignment that's that alignment exercise is needed we need to have greater read across between what we're saying and the ambition is within the biodiversity framework that we're talking about and the agriculture vision we we think that there's probably I'm just thinking I'll leave that point actually sorry I'm going to talk for quite a while on that one so I'll leave that one and save it for the next question just bear in mind your advice thank you unless colleagues have any supplementary on objective 3 I'll move to objective 4 that's appropriate thank you so just moving forward on to objective 4 which is of course related which is protecting support, the recovery of important species and habitats what should be the priorities in developing an effective species recovery reintroduction and reinforcement programme and what does restoring our native wildlife look like and are we keeping pace with the rest of Europe in the approach to species recovery and reintroductions for example what key lessons have we learned to date through experiences supporting the reintroduction and translocation of eagles and beavers for example particularly where there has been a need to manage tensions or competing land management objectives and I think those are particularly the re-location and reintroduction of beavers is a really interesting example of that so I don't know who wants to come in first on that in terms of species recovery our view is pretty clear so we need a programme a national programme of ecosystem restoration and by ecosystem what I mean is some quite specific things like kelp beds species rich grassland Scotland's rainforest and pinewood so these are recognisable ecosystems, it's very hard to an absolute line around them but scientists know what these things are and on those we have seen massive losses through the past sort of three centuries or possibly more and this is what's making Scotland one of the most nature depleted countries in the world and certainly among 20 countries but on top of that you need targeted species recovery work for those species which won't be captured by the more general work so for example you could have a programme of caledonian pinewood restoration that does a brilliant job and you get beautiful caledonian pinewoods expanding but for a species called the twin flower which is a particular very beautiful sort of plant that grows within that habitat actually the stands of twin flower too far apart now for the pollinators to move between them and so they're actually dying out so they require a programme of translocation to make sure that the density of stands of twin flower is sufficient for that species to continue so that's an example where you need targeted species work our seabirds, 70% of our seabirds species are in decline the recent census which was puted in December it's really staggering cos these are some of our most globally significant wildlife populations these birds need the eradication of invasive non-native predators introduced by people so that their breeding sites are safe for them it's as simple as that that's an example of targeted species works as needed on top of the ecosystem recovery and the marine environment so I want it to be absolutely clear that these two things are absolutely essential in terms of ecosystem recovery programmes there's insufficient detail in the current plan as we discussed earlier on species there are some really good signs that NatureScot are thinking and the NGOs are aligning in terms of getting agreement on which of the species are the ones that require that targeted work the process isn't finished yet it's called species at risk it is being led by NatureScot but it's very collegiate and I think that's going in the right direction now a long way to go the state of nature report shows that still on average we are losing wildlife in this country and so there is that that long way to go translocation is simply one conservation tool that can be used to achieve these ends okay so there are a number of other conservation tools tools that one can use in tackling invasive non-native species for example and there is a signal in the delivery plan to a new plan for invasive non-native species in Scotland which we really welcome and look forward to working with government on but again there's no kind of meat on the detail there yet sounds to me from what you're saying that that's quite an important plan to be developed at good pace a very important plan to be developed and we've got some very clear ideas from the NGO sector as to how that we might work together with government on that one Dr Brown I noticed you positively expressing yourself to some of those comments made that you wanted to add no the institute is much more concerned with planning and the operation of the planning system so I'm leaving the species and habitats and ecosystems to my colleagues on the panel sure thank you Mr Wilson I mean you mentioned specifically impacts of beaver your previous question is about alignment with agriculture when the secondary legislation comes through and we get specific schemes developed there absolutely needs to be a space within that for helping and rewarding farmers for working with beavers and the natural flood management massive natural flood management benefits they provide we also need to look at the potential to use those schemes for other species programs that we want to develop as well I do try and talk about benefits wherever I can another species program we're closely involved in is Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels and there's all sorts of really important ecological and moral reasons why we should try and preserve species in Scotland but actually the control that we've taken on amongst the partners within Saving Scotland's Red Squirrels on grey species has really helped when it comes to the rollout of native woodland unfortunately I think a lot of people appreciate that grey squirrels are a real threat to the establishment of woodlands so that would in turn impact our native woodland targets our goals on climate all sorts of other things that are benefitting from these species specific programs as well thank you and we agree that recovery of species is important especially our important native species efforts to do that are admirable and we would completely support that and I didn't get a chance to give our views on the nature networks but if I could just do so quickly here I think that nature networks actually provide a real chance and a real opportunity to link up good things that are happening among Scotland and especially on farms as well so they can be a real opportunity for farmers to showcase the good work that they're doing and when it comes to species abundance and the decline of species farmers know better than anyone what has declined and what's increased on their farm and they can definitely tell you trends over the years of what they've seen and what they know has changed so much on species management and species reintroductions in general I think that there's a lot that we can learn from the way we've done things here in Scotland already I do think, as any of you Scotland we need a review of the current species licensing system a lack of tools in the toolbox for land managers to manage conflict species is an issue and we would actually go so far as to say that species mismanagement and a lack of balance can impact biodiversity it obviously impacts on some farms but it can impact other species as well and I think that needs to be re-looked at in order to ensure that farmers and crofters have those tools to manage certain species when it comes to species reintroductions there will be conflicts in some areas and I don't think we can shy away from the problems that some reintroductions will present more consideration has to be given to those who are adversely impacted there will be the right place for things there will be the perfect habitat for certain things but there will be other areas where it will have an impact on livelihoods and on farming businesses so we think that sufficient risk assessments need to be undertaken to ensure that those are fully taken into account and that the impacts that they'll have on rural industries and other species are fully taken into account we also need to think about compensation and appropriate management measures for those who are negatively impacted of crop losses because of beavers or livestock losses as a result of seagulls and I think that this is a really valid and important part of the conversation that we can't shy away from it's not to say that we can never have those things in Scotland and we should never reintroduce species but it's about being really honest about the impacts negative and positive that they will have OK Ilson, Reverend did you want to add anything or are you content? Have you finished Ben on those? I've just got a couple of questions if I may just on this I think it's very interesting and Paul, I thought it was interesting the mention of the stake control in Orkney which I think has cost us £60 million or will do by the time we've got to the end of the project it is necessary I fully accept that but why I don't understand is who draws the lines so for example we'd probably like to see back into Scotland and across the United Kingdom probably like to see the common tree frog two very easy species to manage we might be a bit more reticent about seeing wild boar in fact I'd be very conscious I don't want to see wild boar in Scotland ripping up our woodlands they might be able to control Ponticum on the west coast but maybe not elsewhere Wolflynx and we've got beaver coming back but we seem to introduce these things without considering control so for the perfect example is Abernethi, which Paul you'll know very well and I know very well and the need to protect Cap Cailley but we seem to allow Pine Martyn to run Riot which definitely does affect ground nesting birds so do you think there needs to be in this plan a more persuasive and clear management plan which could mean that we have to manage species within zones like we're doing agriculture within zones or trees within zones and except that we can't have everything running all over the place I'll go to you Paul and then Sarah I think that these decisions are made collectively I mean there is a forum on reintroductions in Scotland which considers these points like White Stork for example but legally speaking you can release species that are native to this country so in terms of the strategic control I think it needs to be seen in the context of a wider programme of species recovery we have to remember that the key point we're trying to address in a biodiversity delivery plan is how we stop nature losses and some species like beaver frankly I find the scientific literature around the wider biodiversity benefits of beaver is quite extraordinary I don't know anything quite like it they have a hugely positive impact on a vast range of other biodiversity and I thought it was a measure of comments from Sarah really about how we do this and how we manage beavers now the RSPB has made our own land available for the translocation of problem beavers on to our land I think that kind of approach can work quite well it's about getting it right in the right place and I'm sorry it brings us back to this spatial element to this strategy which does seem to be lacking but we've had the germ of in the land use strategy that we really need to bring up to the fore again and to do it quickly but I think in terms of species licensing there is a review has been signalled in the biodiversity framework consultation and I think it's due to come this year isn't it later on this year and it's in that process that we need to consider the detail on which species need to be regulated where but I would caution the committee in confusing the human introduction of a predator on to an island ecosystem like Stoats in Orkney which has obviously globally significant sites for biodiversity habitats and species and the recovery of a native predator like pine martens and we would doubt actually whether we really need to knock back pine martens and not for a capricalee to recover I think what we really need for a capricalee to recover is their habitat to actually be at the right extent you're smiling convener but Caledonia and Pinewood is at about 1% of its original extent it is highly fragmented and that means that you have the edge effect in terms of the edge of woodland in relation to woodland habitat is far far greater now and you have these predation issues as a result of that so I do think it needs to be seen in the round alongside of this. I do very much take that point and having re-established under grant schemes for people that I work for over 800 acres of Caledonia and Pine in the Cengorms National Park and protected willow and aspen which are two of the main species that beavers thrive on along woodland edges which were there to protect riparing habitats I see conflict and all I'm trying to say is should we accept that management needs to be in the plan Sarah? Absolutely yes we accept and believe that management should be a part of this nature is so complex and biodiversity itself is so complex that increases in one species will have an impact on others and vice versa so we really have to look at this in the round and understand that human activity and human involvement in this will have consequences what we believe that the Government should do is try and assess what those consequences are as far as possible so that they can then mitigate them I think a large part of that is understanding what is it that we want to achieve and I think the examples cited were very valid in that as I say there will be different impacts there will be different consequences but really understanding what is it that we want to achieve what species do we want to see thrive, what do we want to protect and improve is really key and management is undoubtedly a part of that as I mentioned in the last answer the risks of not managing species I think are so great and could actually have a detrimental impact on biodiversity that we really can't not include species management as part of this and you know it's not black and white either it's not we'll have all of something or something else that's what management is about it's about control and it's about balance please don't get me wrong I'm all for states being wiped out of Orkney should never have got there in the first place and maybe we should be doing something about controlling how they got there or looking at that to make sure it never happens please don't get me wrong I mean I'm not anti management of species, RSVB manages species we manage deer in a very large scale for example it's all about the detail I could spend all day talking about this I'm not allowed to because I need to come to Monica and Monica the questions are yours I'm really enjoying this session it's nice to be back in Parliament and I think just reflecting on the early questions about engagement I think you've all demonstrated why we need that early engagement in genuine and meaningful co-production but my questions are on objective 5 which is invest in nature and I know the biodiversity investment plan was mentioned earlier on so we know the draft plan has developed a biodiversity investment plan and that will set out or should set out strategic priorities for public investment so I'm keen to understand what has been learnt to date about effective public funding of nature restoration and where does investment need to be prioritised and maybe if you could say a word or two on whether current funding commitments reflect the urgency of the nature crisis which has been articulated today so am I going to Bruce first of all I thought the investment plan would come up again so I didn't elaborate on it too much you're quite right that the wording in the draft talks about how public money might be invested that concerns me a little bit because I think everyone is well aware that the Scottish Government has said that this will not only be about public funding, there is a role for the private sector, blended finance all sorts of other approaches in there as well so if we only consider the public money here we're missing part of the picture because we've been told that this will relate to private investments as well and the second part of your question almost comes into the answer and that this has to be about the spatial prioritisation it's very hard to look at that investment plan without also having the spatial prioritisation in front of you so for example if we were to look at beavers could there be a shout in certain catchments to have a riparian management zone to really prioritise riverside woodlands riparian zones within 5 to 10 metres of the water course to really keep beavers within that area and effectively manage the problem we can't really know that and we can't really know the level investment until we've done that spatial prioritisation aspect of things as well okay please indicate if you want to come in but I don't know if Paul wants to yeah what I would add to that and agree with what Bruce said but I think we need to face reality that there are markets emerging around biodiversity there is a long history of speculation around Scottish land which personally has been a bit of a concern I actually think that one of the big challenges facing the Scottish Government is I think they're going to have to try and regulate these markets and the function of that regulation in my view will be to achieve integrity to ensure that when we do have private finance coming into fund biodiversity as the Scottish Government has made clear it is going to be essential and I agree with that but I think in order to make sure that standards are maintained and that it actually delivers real nature gain in terms of ecosystems and species again I think that those markets are going to need some form of regulation I'm not an economist I'm an ecologist but it really strikes me that there is potential for greenwashing where people say we're doing all this it's all great for nature and in fact it is regimented rows of sick because we saw the equivalent there's massive potential for real gain here and it's potential we have to grasp but it really has to be done with great care I think or we may end up in a situation where something that was ostensibly intended to deliver for biodiversity actually does the reverse that's my feeling I'm keen to bring in others but just building on that because I wanted to then touch on the role of private investment I think Bruce is right that's the reality but some stakeholders have raised concerns that there's an apparent reliance in the draft plan on private investment approaches and I think Paul your point about regulation about integrity, they're obviously key points so what do people agree with the Government strategy to promote responsible investment in natural capital what does that look like and it was ignored looking to expand the use of woodland and peatland codes and exploring biodiversity credits, we've heard some of the fears around potential greenwashing as well particularly with some of the big polluters so I don't say that I want to come in but I can come back to Bruce on that but I'm keen to hear a range of different views if there are any so I'm going to agree with everything that Paul said about regulating the market and making sure that it's robust and it's not greenwashing so we completely agree with that we agree with the Government's intention to create this responsible market but we are sceptical about the over reliance on private finance we know that the public finance isn't going to plug the gap of everything that we want to achieve so there is going to be a requirement for private finance but we shouldn't be too over reliant on it and I can't speak too technically to the nature market side of things but I do know what our members tell us about this emerging markets some people see opportunities and we think that there could be opportunities down the line but at present a lot of people feel like they're just too underdeveloped they're too risky to have confidence in just yet we've also got quite a complicated pattern of land ownership in the way that farming operates it can be complicated you've got landowners and you might have farmers who own the land farming land but you'll also have tenant farmers you'll have crofters and there's a lot of unanswered questions around private finance and how those will work with those different individuals and how those relationships will interact so people are very hesitant to tie themselves into a potentially 10 to 20 year scheme that then comes back to bite them there's also a role to play for retailers as well they're asking more and more of the people that supply to them which can also come into the mix so I think there's just a lot of unanswered questions around what this is actually going to mean in the long term of course as well, science and evidence changes we might be going down a path but in five years I think that that's no longer appropriate so if people are tied into contracts how is that going to impact their business and how are they going to get out of that if it's no longer relevant so essentially there's just a lot of unanswered questions that need to be ironed out and I don't think we can just look at this in a Scottish perspective that brings with it added complications but it's necessary to kind of look at that in the round as well essentially thank you Sarah, I'll bring in Ailsa but just sticking with Sarah for a moment so you've been clear that there's lots of unknowns but from a farming, crofting perspective what would you say are the main risks and opportunities of pursuing private investment in Scotland's natural capital so as I've mentioned before farmers are already doing a lot of great things for nature the opportunities and potential of increased natural capital and nature-based solutions and all those sort of great things for farmers to get paid for doing that is a massive opportunity for them and for private companies for the public for society as a whole to recognise that that is the opportunity the risks are the greenwashing the risks are farmers are being taken advantage of the risks are being tied into contracts that they can't get out of or stipulation changes down the line and that they're then stuck in something that they weren't aware of at the beginning so we just don't know enough about how these markets work and the robustness of them, the integrity of them that all needs to be ensured before going forward and as I've mentioned before as well we do know that there's an agricultural reform coming the bill is coming through Parliament but there's still some uncertainty we still are lacking some details and so people may be hesitant to commit to these markets before all the full detail is realised and that goes for the delivery plan as well we need to know the full details before we can commit Thank you Ailsa, you've been waiting patiently so come to your next Thanks very much this is now a particular concern to communities for sorts of reasons and I think going back to one of the very early questions is why we're not meeting our Woodland and Peatland restoration targets is that the finance is quite complicated landowners don't understand it it seems very speculative there's a lack of transparency the regulation is not working so I think we can learn lessons from Woodland and Peatland and particularly from the carbon rush and the impact that's had on the land markets and land values which as we all know is effectively meant that only the very wealthy now can trade in Scotland's land and most farmers and proffitors and individuals and communities are being priced out of the market so I think there's a lot of lessons we can learn from how the carbon markets have and are working I think the Scottish Government are doing some really interesting work around the responsible investment in natural capital but that needs to be hugely strengthened in terms of that regulatory mechanism that will be put in place for carbon and for biodiversity credits when they do come to the market and they do impact on Scotland so I think link to that is also and some of the proposals around land reform about things like land management plans and how they were public interest tests and how they were strengthening land rights and responsibility statements I think there's quite a lot of mechanisms that would actually address some of the concerns that Paul and Sarah have already outlined here so again it's not starting from scratches building on ideas that are already being developed and particularly very skeptical on reliance on private finance in this market and think there's quite a lot that the Scottish Government needs to do in terms of its thinking around the long term impacts of introducing private finance at scale for biodiversity credits again looking what's happening globally and looking what's happening in carbon and being able to review those impacts before we go down this line of thinking that actually private finance is the route to resolving this because it will have some part to play but we are at the very early stages of understanding what those impacts are and I think is a real need for a big piece of work by Scottish Government to think about that and think about what those implications are particularly for farmers and crofters and communities and those are the organisations and individuals that want to engage in owning Scottish land and delivering that broad range of objectives that Scottish Government has for its land thank you thank you the record I'll squeeze in the final question because I wanted to also cover Objective 6 which is taking action on the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss so again, maybe just give me a wave if you want to come in so the draft plan states that action will be taken to strengthen the connection between people and nature through nature positive developments and stewardship public community and private land so keen to hear from our panel what does nature positive development look like in practice and do we have a blueprint for this in Scotland Caroline wants to come in here a small question there are lots of good examples of how this can be done and we need to think about the design of nature positive developments what that looks like we need to think also about the post occupancy phase put it in that technical way but what happens when people take over the houses or occupy their buildings and what they do because the planning designing stage is a few years and potentially the lifetime of that building or that place and we need to think about that place keeping part and I think there's a huge potential around that I had a conversation with a taxi driver about Suds and Sheffield once and he said what why would you plant things in the middle of the road and I said because it's about flooding and we had this amazing conversation he went okay I get it he understood that investing in that type of planting rain gardens in a street could help to alleviate flood problems and save money in the long term and I think we need to have these conversations there's best practice out there but it has to be shared and if we go back to this action plan the sort of top line about communicating and engaging with communities about this the question is who is going to do it and you know who are they going to talk to and who's going to lead on that activity because there's huge potential to get communities on board with this and I come back to things like local place plans might be a way of helping to do that place keeping not just thinking about new development but about how we steward the existing developments I love that anecdote about chatting to the taxi driver about Suds that's the thing that I would do as a planner at heart the people's plan for nature does call for more locally managed green spaces which might fit with that point you made about what happened after sites are built out and occupied so that community stewardship is really important so it also might want to come back in but does anyone else want to briefly say anything on this team before I hand back to the convener local authorities need to take advantage of the nature network tools to help plan these places and help connect communities with things that they want to do so the nature network side of things might be quite technical but the projects that are delivered on the ground under them need to have any kind of nature network tag associated with them they can just be community led projects but the local authority needs to use the opportunity mapping tool to try and work out the best places to connect those communities with land they might want to try and restore I think we're getting the message that mapping is very important I don't know if you picked a handle I think Paul is waving as well if there's time it will say then Paul yeah thank you just coming back to the previous point about opportunities for communities to engage in rural land is getting fewer and fewer for the reasons we outlined but I think some really interesting examples are coming forward in the urban communities and Ben McPherson touched on some of them already but if you look at what the community will be doing at View Park just by the M8 they've got 160 odd acres there that they're completely turning over to a lot of the type of work we're talking about here that's quite a big scale but on a very small scale you've got a lot of little pocket parks and you've got community gardens and small parks etc that communities are very very engaged in and anything that the biodiversity strategy and delivery plan can do to really encourage that at a very small local scale will not only contribute to the objectives of the strategy and delivery plan but also deliver all those other benefits which we've talked about health and wellbeing and regeneration and addressing things like vacant and derelict land which we know in Glasgow and Dundee in particular are huge issues so I think the work of the Nature Network is really interesting but it is about getting it down to that very local level making the delivery mechanisms easy to understand and accessible for local people to engage Thank you Paul, final word Education has a really key role here actually so I was cycling at the clay pits that Bob Doris was talking about earlier just last weekend at Living Glasgow absolutely amazing example of best practice, a good practice at the Caroline was referring to lessons can be learned and it's fantastic I also met a GP recently who has a practice right next to Pollock Park and she says that most of the people she works with in the housing scheme right next to Pollock Park which won European Park of the year a few years back just don't go to it because you think it's kind of not for them so I do think there is a kind of social effect happening here where this kind of nature seems a bit that's no for ordinary focus for experts kind of thing and I really think that all of us here including the NGOs can play a part in this but the real answer I suspect lies in education and making sure that part of education system puts children in touch with nature so that they feel that it's quite natural post-Second World War local nature reserves the original function of them was educational as an educational resource and I think that these local green spaces should be formally utilised as educational resources to break down some of those barriers I agree Perfect, thank you and now I'm going to bring in to Rhoda Grant and then I'm going to go to Finlay Carson so Rhoda if you could try and direct your questions at a couple of people we are pushed on time as always on this committee but Rhoda, over to you Thank you, convener I've just got a couple of quick finance related questions the first one I'll direct Paul Waddon because he talked about funding for biodiversity and how it was often insufficient in the crofting areas and could often lead to abandonment The previous schemes tended to I suppose reward in arms and the like that had the greatest number of features or habitats that could be restored or protected and that meant that small holdings were left out what can we do with the new scheme to make sure that doesn't happen in those places where that have the best practices are rewarded and encouraged to keep their features In a word I would say the spatial approach you can't just sort of say let's invent a piece of biodiversity and put it somewhere randomly it has to have that biogeographic sense so I do think if we have that spatial element to our biodiversity delivery plan that should then direct the funding to the right places and some work at small scale can be usually valuable and one of the things we'd really like to see is a re-energising of the idea of collaboration and co-operation between different land managers via the agricultural and land management support system so that we get that collaboration which I think delivery has been patchy to date and I think that's really important particularly for smaller holdings Thank you My second question is about private finance and investment and maybe direct this to Ailsal although I know a number of the people on the panel had something to say I suppose that the basic question is what does private finance have to gain by investment because the fear is as was stated before that it causes greenwashing in land prices so therefore it looks like this is being sold on to make profits for private financiers and I suppose the other concern is that selling this on could tie the hands of land managers and we all know that things change very quickly and when we see different actions taking place that that could have a negative impact so I guess where are the benefits one to biodiversity but two for the private financiers what is actually meaning that they will get involved in this kind of finance So we go to Ailsal first and I notice Paul nodding wanting to come in and Bruce say we could do it in that order Thank you, thanks convener I think again we can look at what's happened in the carbon markets and read over then to what might happen in the diversity credit market in Scotland so it's hard to see at the moment how that is going to generate sufficient income in the short term to repay private investment so a lot more work is required on thinking around that because a lot of this is very speculative obviously in the carbon market there's perhaps an anticipation that at some point there will be carbon taxes coming forward and people are trying to get themselves on the front foot around being able but it's more difficult to see that from a biodiversity credit point of view as opposed to the English system of biodiversity net gain so the colleagues will probably have more to contribute I think a lot of this is around socialising risk but privatising reward so we're anticipating there will be a lot of public finance going in at the front end to enable some of this biodiversity work to happen but actually where is the reward coming the financial reward and again I think that speaks to a much stronger system and understanding of how these markets work because I'm just not convinced in Scotland we do understand how they will work for Scotland's land and Scotland's people so I think this big piece of work Scottish Government to do is huge issues around transparency and opaqueness and actually financialisation of land who owns these credits who can enforce them we know we don't really have legal mechanisms at the moment to enable that long-term enforcement particularly when assets transfer and you've mentioned the issue of permanence and yes this is a huge issue for us at the moment but in 10, 15, 20 years there will be another huge issue and are we actually tying up our land resources and assets for a very long period of time for a particular issue now when actually we need more flexibility so I think there's such a lot of unanswered questions and I think there are from a farmers and crofters perspective picked up a lot of that and there's a lot of homelessness around why communities and landowners are not engaging and why we're not meeting the woodland and peatland targets because we don't have clarity and those owners and crofters and communities all understand the issue of permanence in a way that perhaps financial markets don't understand the issues of permanence thank you Bruce I think you can answer Ails has done a really great job of trying to articulate the difference between carbon credits which is as complicated as that is relatively easy versus nature markets you're dealing with a sort of completely non-fungible thing in nature whereas carbon a ton of carbon is the same in any part of the world nature is different in any part of the world nature is different if you move it 15 metres further away so these things are very very difficult to work with you also then start to see confusion between things like biodiversity net gain carbon credits and everything so it very quickly becomes incredibly complicated and one thing that we can do practically is straight away try and move the interim principles that we've already mentioned on to a far more firmer footing the place in my mind to do that is the natural environment bill the voluntary principles that are there at the moment I have seen some investors follow them and that's great but I was lucky enough to be with Finlay during the summer at one of our reserves down there and there's an awful lot of woodland planting going on which a lot of people's minds is natural capital investment there's certainly not following any principles there for those investments be that whether that's actually a natural capital investment or a straight up just forestry investment the perception is that those are now natural capital investments so we need to be moving quite quickly to try and put those on to a statutory footing Chuck process for politicians and government in relation to what's going on on the ground which seems to be going well in front of them but anyway Fin, you've got some questions thank you, convener the new year's resolution to be positive and the new year and sadly it's no reflection on the fantastic contribution that our witnesses have given today but looking at the strategy I feel it's just depressing as a Christmas turkey on boxing day it really has no meat on the bones whatsoever and that worries me on a daily basis we hear Mary McCallan talk about the nature crisis and how we need to go faster and further this doesn't do any of that you've really struggled to touch on the positives that the strategy has but the negatives of what is not in the strategy are really in our face so one of the positives a non-invasive non-native invasive species I've been in this parliament since 2016 we've been talking about it for the last eight years and you're still saying but we need more detail river catchment policies we've had a land use strategy that sat on the shelf for goodness knows how many years we've got an agriculture bill we'll write the business end of that and we still have even though there's supposed to be a joint effort we have one organisation saying 80 per cent should be in tier 1 and we have another organisation saying 25 per cent we're only weeks away from putting into place around that and we're still not there I'm disappointed that there's the feeling that there was no realistic engagement because we really need to be able to communicate the significant impacts that the policies that we're going to need to deliver the huge task of reversing by diversity loss is we're still not there so my question is has there really been genuine co-production on this strategy given some of the issues that you've raised which will in power farmers will empower people to accelerate the delivery of biodiversity restoration because it doesn't appear that we're there at the moment we had a 17.6 per cent cut and the agri-environment budget which doesn't send a very good signal either to farmers that the work that they're doing is being valued or indeed that biodiversity should play a huge role in our future food production so question is this genuine co-production that we need to do a lot more to get a far better joined up approach to biodiversity and the temptation is for me to say to each of you give a yes no answer but that's not going to work I know that but could I ask you to keep them short because I know you'll all have views on this and if you're happy work along the line from Bruce through to Carolina then to Ailsa I'm afraid to say for the majority of this it has not felt like genuine co-production I think there's definitely work to do in engaging wider stakeholder groups particularly delivery partners on the ground governance of how this moves forward and that is a very important thing to now start to work and get right we need non-government leaders on the strategic biodiversity council but I think we need to acknowledge that efforts were made to develop co-design across government which took up an awful lot of time and effort and have had quite patchy outputs in the end I think the real hope for securing proper mainstream across government centres around the legally binding targets for nature and natural environment bill so I think it's absolutely everything to play for and I actually think that to have ministers and cabinet secretaries talk about a nature emergency is a huge bit of progress because the government narrative previously has been Scotland's great for nature look outside your window it's beautiful the problem I think acknowledging that there is an issue is the first step to actually doing the right thing so actually I think there's a bit more meat on your turkey finlay this boxing day and I do think that the direction of travel that's signalled by the whole biodiversity framework is very positive no we also don't think that there's been enough engagement and enough co-design engaging with our environment and land use committee on the list of actions there was disappointment actually that farmers weren't engaged on coming up with that list you know you're giving a list and you're asking what your opinions are on it but farmers could actually use their creativity their experience their expertise to influence what that list said and we just hope that there will still be a chance even though the concentration deadline is passed to still have an input on what the final action plan looks like and also crucially as well I think a lot of the actions in the plan they are existing commitments they are existing things but they don't really address why some things haven't reached their potential already so there's no kind of engagement with industry or with the sector on lessons that could be learned going forward so I think that's two main points completely agree so now definitely not co-produced and lots of potential for more of that to be happening as this goes forward there's a lot of very useful things in here but as we've all said we need to have more detail about who's leading, who's going to be delivering what timescales, what the priorities are the spatial context and how this interface interacts with those other work programmes so NatureScot's work programme the government's work programme on NPF4 and planning et cetera et cetera and economic strategies and all of those other things so there's potential here I think we all see the potential and I also agree about the changing narrative which is really valuable it's at a high level we see it in national planning policy we're seeing it here, we're seeing it in lots of other places the recognition of the dual crisis of climate and nature emergency that in itself is a change but in terms of delivery there's still more meat to be put on those turkey bones yeah thank you I agree with colleagues there that the wider community stakeholder groups haven't been consulted or I'm not aware that they've been consulted from previous types of policy particularly around highly protected marine areas without that consultation you immediately get a defensive reaction which then undermines all of the good objectives that everyone's trying to achieve here so I think there is more work to do there and there's also more work to do around how our community at a very local level can contribute effectively and appropriately at a local scale so that is something that's very easily done at projects that are already underway and that are successful but I think that piece of sort of broader community engagement and broader public engagement is still required to be done so we avoid those immediate defensive reactions thank you and the one question that none of you asked within Finn's question was was there enough money to achieve all of this and where that's coming from and maybe that's the hanging question at the end of it because we are out of time thank you very much for your evidence session this morning and coming here and giving evidence and also for doing it so well online so I knew exactly when you'd finished at the appropriate moment to bring the next person in so thank you very much the committee will be considering the evidence that we've been given and we will also later this month hear from the Scottish Government's plan in relation to this and we're going to move into private session and I'll ask committee members to be back here by 11.35 ready to do that so that concludes the public part of the meeting thank you