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There are currently 586 registered users for the Know & Respond air pollution alert service (via the Scottish air quality website) and a further 947 through the Know & Respond app. However, the number of individuals making use of the service is likely to be significantly higher than this, as a number of registered users are known to be GP practice and specialist nurses who forward the alerts to their patients.

Air quality sensors were first made available to schools in September 2015 as part of a project to raise awareness of air quality issues. They are not part of the statutory air quality monitoring network. All 10 kits have been loaned continuously during term time. The Scottish Government is in discussion with SEPA, the service operator, about possible funding to expand the number of sensors available.

The number of people using the Scottish air quality website on an annual basis since the website was established in 2007 is shown in the following table.

Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) administrator, has well-established processes in place to promote the fund and support applications from a range of communities across Scotland.

This year KSB is running surgeries and events across Scotland to inform and support communities wishing to apply to the CCF. These events are aimed at hard to reach communities and areas identified by the SIMD .

I also refer the member to previous questions for further information on CCF grant awards by SIMD: S5W-09208, S5W-09210, S5W-09211 on 23 May 2017.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is currently preparing a paper on a national ecological network for Scotland in the context of the commitment in the 2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity to complete the suite of protected areas and improve their connectivity through a national ecological network centred on those sites.

The SNH work is being informed by A Roadmap for Adopting a National Ecological Network for Scotland published by Scottish Environment LINK in May and by recent discussion with Scottish Environment LINK, Scottish Government officials and others. Further engagement with stakeholders on this is planned for the autumn.

Work is continuing on a number of the projects in Scotland’s Biodiversity - A Route Map to 2020 which contribute to ecological connectivity, including: a £2.3 million EcoCo LIFE project for habitat restoration and creation to improve ecological coherence within the Central Scotland Green Network; habitat restoration and species management; conservation management of protected sites; and improvements to green infrastructure. In September, a new indicator on ecological connectivity will be published as part of the new suite of Ecosystem Health Indicators.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any evidence of culling of beavers in 2017.

The Scottish Government is not considering any further reintroductions of beavers beyond the populations currently at Knapdale and on Tayside.

Scottish Natural Heritage is leading the development of a suite of Ecosystem Health Indicators to assess the state of ecosystem health across Scotland. In 2014, the then Minister for the Environment agreed the suite of data sets to be used and the work has been taken forward by a working group comprising a number of experts and supported by the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy’s Science Support Group.

The Ecosystem Health Indicators will complement the existing suite of biodiversity indicators and will be made available through Scotland’s Environment Web (SE Web). This will allow several of the Indicators to be fully searchable, for example by allowing users to interrogate the data to view individual features on sites protected for nature and to view information at a landscape scale defined by a number of river sub-basin management areas. Testing of Ecosystem Health Indicators on SE Web will be undertaken during the summer with a view to their inclusion in September 2017.

The SPCB’s Facilities Manager responsible for the catering services has met with representatives from the SOIL Association to discuss the possibility of the Scottish Parliament achieving the Silver Food for Life Catering mark.  The next step will be to meet with organisations who have achieved the silver standard to understand how they managed to do this within the criteria.  In particular we will be looking at how they were able to introduce additional organic produce into the services without a significant impact on costs. These meetings should take place before September.

We are also aware that the SOIL Association and the Carbon Trust have a catering accreditation called the Green Kitchen Standard. This standard looks for best practice in food provenance and environmental management.  We are currently triple certified by the Carbon Trust in the areas of Water, Energy and Waste.  This new catering standard is therefore of particular interest to us.

The Lord Advocate’s Rules: Review of Decision not to Prosecute, made under section 4 of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014, give effect to EU Directive 2012/29/EU. This defines a “victim” as follows-

“A victim is defined as someone who has suffered harm, including physical, mental or emotional harm or economic loss directly caused by a criminal offence. This includes family members of a person whose death was directly caused by a criminal offence, and who have suffered harm as a result of that person’s death.

Businesses, companies and other organisations which are victims of a crime are also included under this policy.”

Although there is no legal right to review in such cases, the Crown is committed to robust and effective decision making and to ongoing engagement with stakeholders. In the COPFS response to the Justice Committee’s Report on the Role and Purpose of COPFS, the Crown Agent stated the following:

“As I highlighted in my written evidence to the Committee, COPFS’ whole approach to the prosecution of wildlife crime has changed dramatically since 2008. Since the establishment of the Wildlife and Environmental Crime Unit (WECU) in 2011 all reports of wildlife and environmental crime are handled by a team of dedicated specialist prosecutors. WECU staff are equipped with relevant knowledge and expertise to assess properly the applicable law to the facts and circumstances in each case. WECU prosecutors, and indeed more senior colleagues, have over a number of years met with NGOs involved in wildlife crime investigations to discuss specific concluded cases and areas of significant concern to NGOs. Consistent with my previous indication that we would seek to build stronger relationships, the Lord Advocate has recently offered the RSPB an opportunity to meet with senior COPFS officials to discuss wildlife crime cases involving alleged raptor persecution. We will continue with these efforts in order to ensure appropriate learning for all those involved in the detection, investigation and prosecution of wildlife and environmental crime is identified and implemented.”