Seòmar agus comataidhean

These are not new issues. The cabinet secretary might recall that there was much debate about setting the boundary of the Cairngorms national park. In fact, John Swinney had to introduce a member’s bill to change the boundary. In the recent campaigns and public consultation around the designation of a new national park in Scotland, there was considerable interest in, public support for and engagement on a Tay forest national park, which would, in effect, by default, have expanded the coverage of national parks in Highland Perthshire. The essence of expanding what national parks do in Perthshire has been consulted on, there is considerable public support for it, and there is an appetite for considering it. If that is not done through this amendment or by putting something in the bill, how would the cabinet secretary see the public interest continuing and, if there is support for it, potentially leading to a boundary change in the future?

This is a huge group of amendments that cover so many different issues, and it is very difficult to unpack them all in a single debate. Sarah Boyack perhaps summed it up when she said that we need to learn lessons and look to the future.

There are a number of strands here. There are the learnings around the recent designation—or lack of designation—of Galloway national park, and there are learnings around the debacle over the Loch Lomond Flamingo Land application. There are serious concerns that the national park plan has been undermined, and there is a lot of learning there about the primacy of the park plan and the accessibility of park board members.

That is just one area of consideration. There is also a debate about landscape, and there is a debate around the purpose of national parks. Cabinet secretary, you have made a number of commitments to a number of members to have further conversations between stage 2 and stage 3. The conversation around the primacy of park plans, ensuring that all public authorities do not dismiss the park plans but work to further the aims of the parks and the aspirations in the plans, is a really important one. The committee has had evidence that there are public authorities, including Forestry and Land Scotland, that have—in some cases—actively undermined some of the objectives of park plans. On Flamingo Land, there are learnings about the role of Scottish Enterprise in relation to the promotion of a site for a development that was hugely unpopular and was in contravention of the park plan.

Within the nugget of some of the amendments in this group, there is concern about democracy and about the accessibility of park authorities. There is also a desire for the democratically agreed park plan to be delivered, with everybody pulling in the same direction. I hope that, if we can take some of the essence of those concerns into conversations with you between stage 2 and stage 3, cabinet secretary, we can find a form of words that reflects the aspirations of the communities.

Members will be aware that we have so many amazing rewilding nature restoration projects under way across Scotland, many of which have been funded by the nature restoration fund, and communities and non-governmental organisations are often involved in managing those sites. However, no current level of protection is given to those undesignated sites, such as community-owned woodlands, where considerable amounts of time, effort and money have been spent. If the ownership of those sites was to change hands in the future, little would prevent a new owner from undoing the restoration that has taken place.

Amendment 67, in the name of Ariane Burgess, requires ministers to review existing measures to protect sites where restoration and rewilding are under way and consider whether new protection or designation might be required to ensure that the gains for biodiversity can be retained in the future. Amendment 67A makes a small change to wording to clarify that restoration and rewilding are on-going processes.

Amendment 303, in the name of Ariane Burgess, picks up on an issue that was included in the Government’s initial public consultation on the bill. The Government proposed including new measures to increase the proactive management of protected areas. The bill consultation noted:

“Under the current legislative regime there is no general obligation on land managers to improve or restore features in unfavourable condition or to take action to prevent them from deteriorating to unfavourable condition.”

We can all think of examples in our regions and constituencies where protected areas are clearly not protected and continue to degrade.

At the time, the Government reflected on that and proposed a solution to amend the existing land management orders and nature conservation orders to clarify that provisions are to enforce active management of nature features in protected areas and to tackle issues such as invasive non-native species, which are absolutely degrading many of the sites. That issue cuts to the heart of what the bill is trying to achieve, because this is a nature emergency bill. Despite having protected areas, we see such degradation and loss continue.

Eighty-six per cent of respondents to the Government’s consultation supported proposals to address that. This morning, we have already heard about the importance of consultation and going with the grain of that. Measures to increase the proactive management of protected areas were not included in the bill despite public support. Amendment 303 seeks to add them in. Although I acknowledge that some revisions to the wording of the amendment might be required before stage 3, I hope that the cabinet secretary can give support to the policy in principle today, given that the Government consulted on it and found strong stakeholder and public support. I am interested to hear what the cabinet secretary says.

I move amendments 67 and 67A.

I want to continue my point. From discussions with estate owners who are developing land management plans at the moment, I know that there is not a hard line between moorland and woodland, for example. The best place to talk about the future of the planning of an estate and where the balance of conservation and different habitats lies is in a land management plan. We agreed provisions on land management plans in the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. Those did not go as far as I would have liked, but I am quite hopeful that, in the land management plans, moorland will have its voice, and communities that have an interest in and a love of moorlands will be able to influence those plans in a way that recognises the importance of the future of that landscape. I understand the essence of what the member is trying to achieve, but I think that we got to where we got to at the end of the process of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, and I would like to see that being rolled out.

On energy infrastructure, I know that there is a campaign, but I go back to our discussions last week about part 2 of the bill: our system of environmental assessment is working and it is robust. I see communities using the concerns that ecologists are raising in environmental assessments to build the case for considering the refusal of renewable energy developments, to assuage concerns, or to focus concerns on areas where there might be an impact and to enter into discussions with developers at the pre-application stage on the siting of turbines and other matters. It offers a window on the potential impact of renewable energy development. If there is not an impact of renewable energy development, I do not see why it cannot go ahead, but that is for the energy consents unit to discuss. The more that communities can engage with the environmental assessment process and reveal that impact, the better, so I do not see the necessity for amendment 334.

No.

Amendment 67, by agreement, withdrawn.

Just to be clear, are you arguing that NatureScot should have a role in determining the level of livestock in a particular strath or area?

I agree with most of what the minister has just set out—I think that that should be the process going forward. However, I invite him to consider the quite rare circumstances in which it would make sense to bypass the voluntary control agreement process and allow NatureScot to take action. If the minister is confident that there could not be any circumstance at all where urgent action would need to be taken, I accept his argument. However, if there is any doubt about that, I ask him to have a conversation with me between stage 2 and stage 3 and to think about lodging an amendment in that space that could be better than mine and could leave it open for urgent action to be taken without undermining the important voluntary agreement approach that has been established. We are all behind that approach and wish the minister well with it, but we have concerns in relation to exceptional circumstances.

Were those aspects considered in the development of the draft climate change plan?

I am reflecting on what the cabinet secretary said about the need to move from reviews into action and delivery. That is the essence of Ariane Burgess’s amendment 303; it is about saying that the existing system of land management orders is not delivering the action that we need to restore nature. When people look around their communities, they can see SSSIs degrading in plain sight, so it is clear that the system is not working. I recognise the on-going invitation to discuss the matter ahead of stage 3, so I think that Ariane Burgess and I will take you up on that, cabinet secretary, and we will want to explore with you the provisions that the Government brought forward in the initial consultation and whether there is something either in the bill or outside it that we could take forward to improve that, because delivery is not happening.

I will not press amendments 67 and 67A today, but it is clear that Ariane Burgess is hearing about these concerns from the communities themselves, so it would be good to relate them to you directly, cabinet secretary.

On the other amendments in the group, it is not entirely clear what Rachael Hamilton is trying to achieve. She talks about tree planting and woodland, so I am not sure whether that relates to commercial trees or woodland restoration.

I wish to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 67A, by agreement, withdrawn.