Seòmar agus comataidhean

Let us go to questions from Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Monica Lennon. I am conscious of time, so perhaps members can direct their questions to specific witnesses.

We will come to Liam Kerr and then Mark Ruskell.

Good morning, everyone. I will chair today’s meeting following the resignation of Dean Lockhart yesterday. We are sorry to see Dean go, but we wish him well in his new role, and we thank him for his service to the committee and for being a courteous and consensus-seeking convener of it. With the committee’s agreement, I would like to write on its behalf to express our thanks to Dean for his work, particularly in seeing us through the energy price inquiry and in our long and continuing investigation into local government and its partners delivering on net zero. Once a motion on the new Conservative member of the committee has been agreed to, the committee will agree to appoint a new convener at the first opportunity.

This is the 23rd meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in 2022 and our first meeting following the summer recess. It is lovely to see everybody.

Agenda item 1 is to consider whether to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Item 3 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today, and item 4 is consideration of the committee’s work programme. Under item 5, we will consider a list of candidates for two adviser posts to support our work. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Item 2 is our first evidence session in relation to the Scottish biodiversity strategy. I refer members to the papers from the clerk and the Scottish Parliament information centre for this item.

In June, the committee agreed to scrutinise biodiversity policy and the proposals for the Scottish Government’s new biodiversity strategy. That will be the first substantive update of Scotland’s overarching biodiversity policy since 2013 and the starting point in a process that will lead into the development of rolling delivery plans and statutory nature restoration targets through the introduction of a natural environment bill. The Scottish Government is currently consulting on the strategy. The consultation will end next week, and the strategy should be published later this year.

Today, we will hear from two panels that will focus on land and marine environments. The session will be an opportunity to discuss what is needed to address the biodiversity crisis, reflections on the outcomes that are specified in the consultation, and views on the legislative requirements and what else needs to happen to deliver those outcomes.

We will start with a panel that will focus on land. I welcome our panellists, all of whom are joining us in the room. Professor Elisa Morgera is professor of global environmental law at the University of Strathclyde and director of One Ocean Hub; Suzie Saunders is policy advocate at Woodland Trust Scotland; Dr Paul Walton is head of habitats and species at RSPB Scotland; and Bruce Wilson is public affairs manager at the Scottish Wildlife Trust. I thank the panellists for accepting our invitations; we are delighted to have you here.

We have allocated around 70 minutes for this session. Members will ask questions in turn. As members know, it will help broadcasting if they direct their questions to a specific panellist or set out a running order for answering the question if it is relevant to all the panellists. I would like everyone—members and panellists—to try to be concise in their questions and answers, if they can be.

I will begin with a question for everybody and will go to Professor Morgera first. Scotland has so far struggled to make progress on slowing and reversing biodiversity declines. What are the key challenges for Scotland and the reason why some targets have been missed to date? I will allow everybody to answer that key question.

I will bring in Monica Lennon, to be followed by Jackie Dunbar.

I am afraid that I have to bring the discussion to a close. The session has been extremely helpful. Thank you for your clarity and your challenge.

Thank you. Your sound is fine, but your visual is not as secure, although we can see you. The broadcasting staff can indicate if they want to do something about that. However, we definitely heard what you said there.

I will ask the same question that I asked the previous panel. Looking at the international picture, and with COP15 coming, what expectations do you have and what is the interaction between the current consultation on Scotland’s strategy and COP15?

I will go first to Calum Duncan, and then to Craig Macadam and finally to Susan Davies, so that broadcasting can help us with any issues with Susan’s connection.

We will have to bring the session to a close. I thank the witnesses very much for sharing with us their expertise on, and knowledge of, what is obviously a very complex and challenging area. In particular, I thank Susan Davies for persevering with us—we heard you loud and clear.

Once the committee has decided how we should best approach the biodiversity and nature emergency issue in relation to what we have heard, we will decide what we will do to relay that to the Scottish Government in our considerations and planning.

That concludes the public part of the meeting. We will now move into private session.

That reflects some of the comments that we heard at the Edinburgh international culture summit, when we were discussing climate change and that connection between people and nature, so thank you very much for that.

Thank you for bringing that issue so forcefully to our attention.