Ash Dieback
Agenda item 3 is ash dieback. I welcome Claire Baker, who is an interested member; the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Wheelhouse; and David Howat and Dr James Pendlebury, who are his officials. I invite the minister to make short introductory remarks. We have received an excellent paper from you, and we look forward to asking questions.
The Minister for Environment and Climate Change (Paul Wheelhouse)
Good morning, and thank you, convener.
The matter that the committee has just dealt with and the reference to the Subordinate Legislation Committee are being pursued, and I hope that we will have progress on that very shortly.
Thank you for inviting me to discuss ash dieback, which is caused by the Chalara fungus.
As I said to the stakeholders whom I met in Parliament just two weeks ago, ash dieback is—regrettably—clearly present in the United Kingdom and likely to spread further. From the surveys that have been carried out, we have 241 confirmed cases in the UK, 17 of which are in nurseries, 97 of which are in recent planting sites, and 127 of which are in mature trees in the wider environment. In Scotland, we have 23 confirmed cases, including one nursery case, 18 cases in recent planting sites and four cases in sites in the wider environment. All those numbers are as at 6 pm on 27 November. It is expected that they will be updated at midday today, when the continuing laboratory tests are completed.
Last Friday, I made a private visit to one of those sites in the wider environment—it was near Eyemouth—where I learned of the difficulty in identifying mature diseased trees whose symptoms are more subtle. We have been working very closely with the UK Government and the other devolved Administrations on that problem. Earlier in the month, we undertook a rapid, snapshot survey to get a better feel for the current broad extent of the disease in Scotland. I pay tribute to all those who took part in that survey at very short notice. The survey was initiated on Thursday 1 November and completed just five days later, ahead of schedule. Indeed, Forestry Commission Scotland staff went on to help their counterparts in Northumberland.
I have taken part in the emergency COBRA meetings chaired by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Owen Paterson, and my officials are working closely with colleagues in other parts of the UK to develop a Chalara control plan, which I expect to be published within the next week or so.
In the meantime, there is a ban, supported by the Scottish Government, on the import and movement of ash plants within the UK. An independent expert task force on tree health and plant biosecurity, which is led by the chief scientific adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Professor Ian Boyd, has been appointed to advise on tree and plant disease threats and to make recommendations on how those threats could be addressed. The task force includes three experts from Scottish universities: Professor Nick Hanley from Stirling, Professor Tom Meagher from St Andrews, and Dr Steve Woodward from Aberdeen. We are expecting the task force to publish its interim report next week, with a final report being produced in spring 2013. We have also commissioned an independent consultant, Dr Rick Worrell, to produce an initial assessment of the potential ecological and economic impacts of Chalara in Scotland, and that report will be published in early December.
The Scottish summit, which I held two weeks ago and which was attended by more than 40 stakeholders, identified a number of key actions that we are taking forward. The Forestry Commission is developing advice on the management of ash, which will cover the sensitive management of mature trees, techniques that could help to slow down the spread of the disease and lessen its impact, and identification of resistant strains of ash, and the commission is also examining whether there are suitably isolated locations around Scotland that could act as a refuge for ash in the country. We also want to develop practical and affordable approaches to dealing with newly planted sites.
Although our native ash is not a major component of woods and forests in Scotland, it is an important feature of our landscape, has considerable biodiversity value and is also one of the most productive broad-leaved species with regard to timber and firewood. Although I assure the committee that we will take all reasonable steps to limit the disease’s impact of this disease, ash dieback is—as you know, convener—unfortunately just one of a number of tree health problems that we face. For example, Dothistroma—or red band—needle blight is affecting pine trees, especially in the north and east of the country, and is posing a threat to the iconic Scots pine. We are also facing a range of threats from phytophthoras, including the current impact of Phytophthora ramorum on larch in Galloway and Argyll.
I am pleased that the committee has chosen to consider this important and worrying issue and look forward to answering any questions that members might have at this stage. As you have said, convener, I am accompanied by David Howat, deputy director of Forestry Commission Scotland, and Dr James Pendlebury, the chief executive of Forest Research. I thank the committee for the opportunity to make these opening remarks.
We are interested in looking at the issue in some detail because, as you have said and as has been pointed out in the chamber at First Minister’s question time, there are a number of species—some have suggested that the number is as high as 15—that are under various threats. Perhaps our handling of the ash threat will stand as a model for how we handle some of the other threats.
Graeme Dey will kick off the questioning.
My question is perhaps best directed at David Howat. How, in practice, did Forestry Commission Scotland undertake its rapid ash survey? What did you learn through that process about your ability to respond to such developments in the forestry sector?
David Howat (Forestry Commission Scotland)
As the minister has made clear, we initiated the survey on 1 November. We have been fortunate because we had already been carrying out a native woodland survey in Scotland and have pretty good information to begin with about the location of ash woods. From that, we were able to develop a sampling frame. Essentially, we divided Scotland up into 10km squares and visited up to four ash woods in each of those squares where such woods were present. From 1 November to 6 November, we had foresters going out across Scotland, with the exception of the northern isles and the Western Isles, and they had protocols to see whether there was any evidence of ash dieback in the ash woods. If they suspected something, they would take photographs and report their findings; more experienced surveyors would visit the sites; and if they confirmed the suspicion, they would send off samples to the laboratory for analysis.
The same approach has been taken throughout Britain and has allowed us to develop a map showing the geographical distribution of ash dieback across Britain. Scientists at the University of Cambridge are now using that map to model the disease’s epidemiology and take a snapshot of where it is at the moment and, using information from the continent, modelling of air movements and so on, to pick up the best possible information about the disease’s future movements.
How do you rate your own performance in that regard? Has the process identified things that you could do better in future if something similar arises? Are you satisfied that you have performed well?
There are always things that we can do better, and we have to think hard about how we can learn lessons. We had a meeting—I had organised it before the ash dieback problem arose, as it happens—to bring together the policy people in the Forestry Commission and those from other parts of the Scottish Government who deal with health threats to other plants such as potatoes. Also present were the chief scientific adviser for Scotland and scientists from the Scottish Agricultural Science Agency, Forest Research and the James Hutton Institute. The intention was to pool the expertise that we have in Scotland and take stock of it so that we can start thinking about how we move forward.
As the minister mentioned, the control plan for Chalara will be published next week, as will the interim report from the UK chief scientific adviser’s task force. Building on those milestones, we will need to consider how we make best use of the capacity that we have in Scotland.
You described how you undertook the rapid survey of ash. How did we help our colleagues in England?
Essentially, we were fortunate that we managed to finish a bit early, and we were therefore able to lend staff to help in the north of England.
Good morning, everybody. The minister mentioned that ash is not just an indigenous species but is a valuable species for timber. I am aware of the case of ash dieback in Eyemouth in the Borders. Committee paper 2 notes that there has been a prohibition on all imports of ash and ash saplings, but not on movements of timber, which is described as being “very low risk”.
You have carried out a good survey, but it took place when the leaves were falling. With ash, as we all know, the leaves fall very early. I am concerned that ash dieback may show up as more of a problem come June or July next year when the ash leaf comes out again—again, ash is a late producer of leaves.
I am slightly concerned that ash timber—which is of value, of course—is still being allowed to move around Great Britain. I would like to know how safe that is.
I will ask Dr James Pendlebury to address that point.
Dr James Pendlebury (Forest Research)
On timber imports and movement, if the bark is removed from the timber, the risk of infection and transmission of infection is, from what we understand from the literature, minimal. The bark would be removed in the timber trade, so only timber—planks and things like that—is being shipped around. It is, as Jim Hume says, the movement of bark and leaves that causes issues. In the timber trade, logs are not moved around with bark on any more; the trade involves processed timber in the main.
However, there are concerns around moving firewood from infected sites. The latest information and advice is that, if the wood is burned locally within a few kilometres of the site, there is not a huge amount of risk of transmission of the disease. However, the principal advice for large-scale timber movement is that, as it involves processed timber that is dry and does not have any bark on it, there should not be a major risk.
Are there any estimates of the value of ash timber in Scotland?
Not that I am aware of.
On that point, I suspect that the value is comparatively low. As Jim Hume says, ash is a valuable timber species, but it has not been grown on any scale as a productive species in Scotland. There will be some ash of value, but that is not comparable with the value of our main productive species such as Sitka spruce.
As the minister mentioned, we asked Dr Rick Worrell to carry out a piece of work on the economic and ecological impact of ash dieback in Scotland. We expect his report next week, so we will be able to add some facts and figures on that issue.
That may be useful for some of us.
10:15
I will pick up on Jim Hume’s theme. You might be aware of my opposition to a proposed 100MW biomass electricity plant in my constituency. I was concerned to read in the stakeholders’ meeting report that a potential pathway for other pathogens such as needle blight on pine, which you mentioned earlier, is the importation of biomass for energy production. I hope that you will undertake to make the Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism aware of that potential threat.
I will certainly undertake to share the scientific advice, as we get it, on the potential risks that are posed by imports of wood. Dr Pendlebury commented on the movement of sawn timber within the UK, but I take the point that imported wood presents a risk—there is a potential risk associated with the importation of any plant material to the UK. I assure the member that I will pass on any scientific advice that we have to the energy minister, Fergus Ewing.
Thank you.
Good morning, gentlemen. Chalara was first identified in England in February and its presence was confirmed in March. The first signs of the disease in Scotland were picked up in July. What action did the Scottish Government take in the interim period to prevent the disease from spreading? I know that the fact that it is an airborne disease means that it is very difficult to prevent it from spreading, but did the Scottish Government take any such action? What would you do differently, if anything, if another disease were identified in England? What action can you take and what strategies can you put in place to ensure that you are prepared for a similar occurrence in the future?
That is certainly a reasonable question. I welcome the opportunity to clarify what took place in Scotland.
You are correct about the timeline. The first suspected sites of the disease in England were identified in February and its presence was confirmed in March. During the period in question, the Scottish Government advised the commercial industry and other stakeholders of the risks to Scotland. Through Forestry Commission Scotland, we do regular inspections of nurseries in Scotland in which we look at the risks to the commercial nursery sector of all sorts of plant diseases, including Chalara.
In May 2012, nursery inspections specifically on Chalara were undertaken in Scotland in response to what we knew was happening in England. Unfortunately, on 9 July suspected signs of Chalara were identified on a newly planted site at Knockmountain near Kilmacolm, which I am sure the member is aware of. On 2 August, following test results, it was confirmed that Chalara was present at that site. Press releases were issued to raise awareness of the fact that Chalara was present in Scotland at Knockmountain.
Following that, a routine nursery inspection picked up signs of Chalara in a nursery in the north-east of Scotland. That was the first—and, so far, the only—recorded instance of Chalara in a nursery. In both cases, action was taken to destroy the trees. At that point, it was presumed that it was still possible to prevent ash dieback from presenting a major threat to UK trees. Unfortunately, we now realise that it is present in the wider environment to a much greater degree than had been expected.
As for what we could have done differently, I am reassured by the information that I have been provided with. From May 2010 onwards, when it first discovered that the causal agent was the pseudoalbidus, a version of the fungus’s sexual phase, rather than the albidus, which is the fungus endemic to the UK and which had been presumed to be the cause of symptoms up to that point, the Forestry Commission commissioned a Danish expert, Dr Iben Thomsen, to undertake a quick survey of the condition of ash in Scotland. At the time, 14 sites were visited and 33 samples taken, and the feedback was that only the endemic albidus fungus was found. In other words, we checked at the time whether the disease was present in Scotland and found no positive results in the sampling that was carried out.
Moreover, as David Howat has made clear, the national forest inventory, which was undertaken between 2009 and 2012, let us know the location of ash trees and gave a basic assessment of tree health and a methodology was supplied to surveyors specifically to provide an early warning of Chalara in order to gather the necessary evidence for pest-free status if something like an import ban were to be imposed in future. The methodology included many individual tree inspections. Although some ash crown dieback was observed, the Chalara ash dieback fungus itself was not identified. During that time, the Forestry Commission and Forest Research listed Chalara as “one to watch” and, since 2009, Forest Research’s website has contained a description of Chalara’s symptoms.
Our regret is that a similar survey was not being carried out at the same time to identify Chalara in the rest of the UK. As we have subsequently found, the disease is much more present in the wider environment in England. To be fair to DEFRA, because of the confusion over the non-dangerous albidus fungus and the pseudoalbidus, I do not think that it had any idea that the disease was present to such an extent. With the benefit of hindsight, I suggest that had a similar survey been carried out in the rest of the UK at the same time we might have had a better picture of whether the disease was already here and might have been able to act faster. At that point, however, we genuinely held the view that it was not present in Scotland and had no information to suggest that it had reached the rest of the UK.
As is normal practice, I will give Claire Baker room to roam after committee members have asked their own questions. I note, however, that an awful lot of members seem to have questions.
Convener, I believe that you said that ash dieback is but one of many diseases that have hit our forest estate in recent years. Imports have already been mentioned a lot. I want to ask about that issue, because it seems to me that it is a root cause of a lot of the diseases that have been hitting us.
Given that that is the case, it would make sense for us to grow as much of our nursery stock as we can here in Scotland. Indeed, that very point is made in a report by the Confederation of Forest Industries that I think we have all been sent, which, as I am sure you are aware, puts forward an action plan that covers a number of interesting UK-wide issues. My point, however, is this: if we are to stop the demand for imported trees, we must have a steady planting plan for future years so that nurserymen know what to grow and there is a degree of continuity in what will obviously be a long-term process. Could that be achieved? If so, what steps could the Government take to bring it about? After all, if we can grow all the stock that we need, the problem might be partly—although not wholly—solved.
I certainly acknowledge Alex Fergusson’s point. At a recent meeting that David Howat and I had with Confor, we discussed some of the challenges with regard to European funding in the transition from the Scottish rural development programme to its replacement scheme. I am sure that we are all aware—and the committee more than most in the chamber—of on-going negotiations about the reform of the common agricultural policy and the risks of delaying agreements to budgets and the detail of successor schemes. At our meeting, Confor made the reasonable point that the industry needs a degree of certainty about planting rates and the wider policy with regard to not only funding schemes but the balance between productive and broad-leaved species and, within that, the species that we recommend be used in various schemes.
The general principle behind what you are saying is absolutely right. Where we can give certainty, we will seek to do so. Obviously, with the on-going CAP negotiations, we are aware of the risk of a drop in the amount of co-financing available to the Scottish Government in the interim period. We are taking steps to ensure that we have contingency plans in place to minimise the disruption to our ability to meet our critical—I say this as Minister for Environment and Climate Change—10,000 hectares per annum target for planting.
On imports, you are right that it would be a pretty significant or major step if we were to have wider import bans for tree saplings. Clearly, that would have consequences not only for the commercial nursery sector but for other businesses. We are keen that we examine those issues, which we hope will be addressed by the control plan and the work that is being done at UK level by Ian Boyd and others.
The nursery industry has made claims about the grants system, but the species of tree planted is ultimately the land manager’s choice. Ash is one of the many species that are available and we are giving out advice on alternatives that can be used in existing projects and those that are due to go into the pipeline. From figures that I saw earlier on the share of broad-leaf planting, I think that more than half of the total UK broad-leaf planting last year happened in Scotland, so this is clearly a disproportionately significant issue for us to address.
I have a brief follow-up question. I thank the minister for that substantive response, which I appreciate. Aside from all the CAP difficulties that the minister rightly says we have all been involved in, presumably it would be good practice for our nursery stock to be grown here in Scotland—full stop. Can the Government do anything to encourage that? Obviously, part of the answer will be certainty about the planting grants but, presumably, other incentives could be promoted to encourage our nurserymen to produce the stock that we will need in future.
Certainly, I fully accept the point that there is potentially an opportunity for Scotland’s nursery sector to grow its business. Given the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to achieving our 10,000 hectares per annum planting target, there is certainty for the sector about the volume of work that will be required. If there are tighter controls on the movement of plants into the UK, clearly that regulatory change will create really good market demand, if you like, given the certainty that there will be a need to supply projects across Scotland. Of those projects, about 10 per cent are on Forestry Commission land but 90 per cent are on other landowners’ property. If the committee has any suggestions about means by which we could support that process to get us to the stage where we have more availability of indigenous supply, I am all ears.
Perhaps David Howat can say whether there is anything that he believes could be used as an incentive in that process.
Mr Fergusson and the minister make an important point about this being an opportunity for the nurseries. We need to work with the nursery sector to see how we can take advantage of the opportunity to produce more stock domestically rather than rely on imports.
Good morning, gentlemen. I want to continue that discussion but perhaps look at it from the other side. Everything that I have heard you say is about what the Government is trying to do to help the private sector, which I entirely respect. What is the private sector itself doing in response to this change in its environment?
Nigel Don raises an important point. We have been giving on-going advice to nurseries. When chalara was first identified as a risk, nurseries were advised of the risk and on-going guidance about the issue has been made available, through websites and through press releases, to the wider stakeholders who purchase products from nurseries. There is an onus on the end-buyer of plants to ensure the provenance of what is brought into Scotland, so that is an important point.
Perhaps David Howat can outline what steps are being taken to work with the purchasers of tree products to ensure that they comply.
10:30
There are a number of different strands of work with the private sector. We have worked closely with the nursery sector during the past two years to help a number of nurseries that had suffered from the dothistroma needle blight to produce clean stocks.
Another strand of activity has been the raising of awareness among private sector forest managers, because among other things we want eyes—not ears—on the ground, so that we can see what is happening. Therefore, as well as running seminars for our staff we have been running forest health days with forest research colleagues. We have got private sector forest managers and other interested people to come along to those days, which have taken place in different parts of Scotland.
At the more strategic level, Hamish Macleod, who is chair of the Forestry Commission national committee for Scotland and director of BSW Timber, has convened a Scottish timber market impacts group. The group is looking at future timber supply in the round, but a specific element of its remit is to look at the impact of tree health problems on the timber industry. The aim is to help the private sector to understand the potential consequences of tree health problems such as ash dieback and dothistroma, which has an impact on lodgepole pine and so on, and to consider how best to respond to such problems.
As Alex Fergusson said, there has been a plethora of diseases. There was sudden oak death, and now ash is threatened. I used to be a trustee of Borders Forest Trust. Tree plantings would not happen unless we could get indigenous species—I am talking about very local seed production. You said that it would be good to help the local supply. As a starting point, do we know what percentage of trees that are grown in Scotland come from stock that was sourced in Scotland?
It came as a slight surprise to me some months ago to learn the extent to which locally collected seed is sent to the Netherlands, for example, to be grown on and then returned. Technically, the tree is of local provenance, but actually it has been grown elsewhere and brought back.
Rick Worrell is doing a lot of phoning round nurseries and so on, to get the best possible handle on your specific question about exactly what is going on in the nursery trade. We have asked him to consider the matter as part of his impact assessment.
Twenty years ago, when we started to plant our garden, we made sure that the stock came from local sources. There were stories about that, which I could go into in great detail. The point is that local people had collected the seed or saplings. Is there a labelling process in nurseries that enables us to identify where the tree has been brought on, in cases in which local seed has been sent to the Netherlands, for example? Could such a process be implemented quickly?
That is a sensible suggestion, which we should look at. I will take it forward in discussions with DEFRA on the matter. It seems that seeds are exported to the low countries and elsewhere because they can grow faster there. It is done merely to speed up the process. That might be a simplistic explanation, but that seems to be the process—I am a relatively layperson in this matter, so the process probably surprised me more than it did David Howat.
I entirely agree that there should be something like labelling in all areas, whether we are talking about food production or plant material, to help consumers to see where products are from and to make informed choices. I will take the point forward.
The convener is absolutely right. An analogy that rings a bell with me is with Scotch beef, which has to be born, reared and slaughtered in Scotland. To date, labelling is very much related to where the seeds came from and ignores the rearing of the seeds. The convener made a very good point.
Good morning to the minister and the two other witnesses. You asked about local seed collection projects that it might help to highlight. The Scottish Wildlife Trust drew to my attention a project in the Highlands. I hope that I will pronounce its name right, but I ask anyone who knows better to correct me. It is called the Coigach Assynt project—I think that I got that wrong, convener, but never mind.
No, you were correct. That was very good.
The project involves local landowners working together to collect seeds, whose provenance is assessed. Perhaps that model could be looked at and considered further.
More broadly, what is the Scottish Government’s strategy for creating resilient ecosystems that can bounce back from the sort of devastation that we fear from ash dieback? In view of the concerns about a range of pathogens, how will that be funded if there is—dare I say it—any additional money?
I very much support the model that you describe, in which, through the Scottish Wildlife Trust and other bodies, landowners and agents collect seeds. Now that we believe that, unfortunately, ash dieback is widespread throughout Great Britain—we are now aware that it is present in Northern Ireland, too—we have changed our tactics to protect as best we can mature trees in the short term, so that we can identify resilient strains of ash tree.
The evidence from the continent is that 1 to 2 per cent of trees in locations such as Denmark might well be naturally resistant to the fungus. We are working with landowners and volunteers to take a citizen science approach, which is a constructive way of identifying in a stand of trees that have signs of ash dieback one or two ash trees that show resilience to the disease. That information needs to be supplied to the Forestry Commission Scotland and other stakeholders. At the stakeholder summit, we discussed how to co-ordinate the collection of such information and provide a single point of contact. We hope to give guidance on that in the future.
The citizen science approach can help us to identify such trees and collect seeds. It is important to maintain the genetic biodiversity as best we can, so that we do not replace one problem with another problem by developing all our ash trees from one genetic set, which could leave them exposed to other diseases. We must try to get the right balance in maintaining the diversity of the genetics of our tree population and identifying commercially viable ash tree strains to supplement that.
As for resilient ecosystems, we have increased the Scottish Government funding to deal with plant health issues from £50,000 to £600,000 per annum through the spending review period. That is enabling us to do things such as aircraft and helicopter surveys of forests to look from the sky for evidence that could be followed up on the ground. We are providing additional human resource to do such work.
You are right to identify that the challenge is becoming more present. As climate change impacts, some diseases have a better chance of getting a foothold in Scotland than they would otherwise have had. The problem is getting more severe. We have increased resources, but we will have to keep an eye on the scale of the challenge and respond with resources accordingly.
I ask James Pendlebury to comment on how we can do more to make our ecosystem resilient.
There are quite a few things to mention. The control strategy will be key to managing the disease. We hope that it will be issued in the next week or two, in association with DEFRA, stakeholders and all the scientists who are involved.
In the sector, the nursery trade is already working with us and others on the issues of breeding for resistance and how we can do that. The science indicates that ash has a fairly broad genetic base; it is not like elm, which is almost clonal—that is why white elm was vulnerable to Dutch elm disease. The current pest seems to have quite a narrow genetic base, so there might be some hope in that. The resistance indication from Denmark is that any resistance in ash is highly heritable, so there is a really good chance that we might be able to breed for resistance.
Managing the future crop of ash is about trying to maintain as many trees as we can for quite a long period of time. If we felled them all, we would have nothing to breed from. That sounds basic, but it is fundamental. Going forward, it is about diversifying the forestry crop that we put on the ground with alternative species and about management strategies for some of the diseases, such as dothistroma. There is evidence that if we open up the crop quite a bit and thin it, we get air flow through it, which reduces the incidence of the disease. There are therefore management strategies that can be developed for various crops and various diseases.
The process will be a blend of maintaining what we can of current diversity and thinking about future, alternative species that will provide some of the required specialist habitats. The Scottish Wildlife Trust raised that point, which is important for maintaining ecological diversity, in the stakeholder meeting with the minister.
A range of advice and information must be brought to the table. For example, on future management strategies, we have been working with stakeholders—arboriculturists and forest nursery managers—to work out how we manage ash in the wider environment to deal with the disease as it currently is out there. We have to bring to bear a range of different factors.
Good morning minister, and gentlemen. I had a lot of questions, but the Forestry Commission’s paper of November 2012 has answered quite a lot of them. I have been impressed by the action that the minister has taken in the past couple of weeks and the knowledge that he has gained on the subject.
I turn to an issue that is related to a question that Alex Fergusson asked. To my mind, timber production is an important sector in Scotland. What is being done to assess the impact of all tree diseases on timber production?
As we indicated earlier, one of the issues that came up in the stakeholder summit was why it took a crisis such as ash dieback to bring together Government, stakeholders and environmental non-governmental organisations in one room. That is a legitimate point. The meeting was productive, but we need to maintain that communication with the sector and ensure that we have strategies to tackle diseases such as dothistroma and phytophthora. As James Pendlebury said, we need improved forestry practices to minimise the risk of diseases spreading and we can do that by thinning and allowing the air flow to go through woodlands more effectively.
As we gain understanding, we must communicate it to the sector in a channelled and focused way rather than allowing it to happen through a drip-feed of information on websites and so on. We want to keep up stakeholder engagement and maintain communication with all interested parties in a more organised way. I that that think will help.
It is right to stress the diseases’ potential impact on individual tree species—for example, the impact of phytophthora on larch, or the threat to native juniper trees, which may not be of commercial interest but which have an important role in our ecosystem. Dothistroma is a particular worry, given that it threatens our unique native species of Scots pine. We are clearly concerned to ensure that that issue is given high priority. To pick up on Claudia Beamish’s point, we must provide adequate resource for responding to plant health issues and ensure that we communicate the information that helps the industry to improve its practices.
The point about imports was made earlier. We have to reduce the risk of imported material damaging our commercially important sector and our native woodlands. David Howat and James Pendlebury might want to talk about the specific scale of the threat.
10:45
The most serious impact in Scotland is that of dothistroma needle blight on pine, and on lodgepole pine in particular. If the crop is left for too long, it turns more or less into sawdust in the forest. Forest Enterprise has done forward surveying and we are encouraging the private sector to do that, so that it can get into the crops and harvest the timber that is still harvestable. That is the action that is being taken on that problem.
Phytophthora in the larch is not having a significant impact on timber production, but clearly it will. It has advanced a lot more down in south-west England, and we are learning lessons from there about impacts on the larch market.
As I explained, part of the job of the Scottish timber market impacts group is to look at implications of tree health on timber production. However, that is against the background of the very detailed forecast of softwood availability that was published earlier in the year, which shows that—putting aside tree health problems—we have quite a good story to tell about rising production. We do not just have to think about tree health; we have to think about issues such as accessibility to timber transport, owners’ motivations and so forth. The role of the people in that group is to get their heads round the whole picture of where we are going on timber availability in Scotland.
Based on what has been learned from this instance, I take it that we will continue to monitor tree production, and ensure that it is safeguarded and that any disease is highlighted quickly.
I agree with that absolutely. Although I referred to the need to improve communications, I would not want to keep having meetings with stakeholders without any defined purpose. However, one thing that came out of our meeting was a sense that there was value in such meetings, and that they might be replicated to look at wider tree health issues and to engage with the likes of the Scottish timber market impacts group, to which David Howat referred.
Bringing people together in that way was a very effective way of communicating the main scientific messages. Dr Pendlebury gave a very helpful presentation on the symptoms of chalara ash dieback. We should have a similar process of engagement with the industry if there is another threat, such as dothistroma. We should provide a similar level of advice—on the action that is being taken specifically on the disease, on how the Government and industry can improve the interactions of things such as SRDP and on how we can change our procedures so that we can address and react to the challenges of the disease.
The approach that was taken was valued by stakeholders and it could be replicated for other situations that arise. I hope that there will not be many of them, but I fear that, because of climate change, our environment will be more conducive to pests affecting our commercially valuable timber industry.
Claudia Beamish and Margaret McDougall have questions on this point.
Sorry, my question is not on this point.
Margaret McDougall is first in the queue, then.
I will ask about imports in the private sector. In recent years there has been a huge increase in the variety of trees that we can buy in garden centres. What restrictions and checks are put in place for the likes of garden centres, to ensure that they do not import diseased plants and trees?
The matter of import restrictions is currently reserved, so we have to work through DEFRA and UK authorities, which we are doing constructively. We are giving our views on those issues and we have made suggestions about the future scenarios to which Dick Lyle has just referred. There might need to be an examination of the implications of wider import restrictions on different species and we are keen to engage with DEFRA on that.
I will bring in David Howat on the current regulatory environment for nurseries and the sale of horticultural products.
We work very much in the context of the European Union plant health regime, which, in the international hierarchy, sits under the international plant protection convention. There are also links with the World Trade Organization.
There is a tension between our desire to protect ourselves against the import of pathogens, and the principles of free trade within Europe. Under the EU plant health regime, there are possibilities for member states and parts of member states to determine disease-free areas and all the rest of it, and to impose various plant passporting regimes.
The set-up in Scotland is that the horticultural marketing unit sits within the rural payments and inspections directorate in the Scottish Government. The unit’s staff go out and undertake physical inspections of nurseries, so that is the control that operates from there.
Part of the meeting on Monday, to which I referred earlier, related to the need to ensure that we have a good joined-up approach in Scotland—I am keen to do that, although it is currently pretty good anyway—between what we in the Forestry Commission do for forest trees and what our colleagues in RPID and other parts of the Scottish Government do with regard to the ornamentals that come into nurseries, which Margaret McDougall mentioned.
They come into garden centres, too.
Yes.
I want to pick up on something that the minister said earlier with regard to how we do the survey. I am concerned that if we get people out on foot, they are very close to the scene of the crime—the leaf—but they cannot go very far.
I think that I heard the minister suggest an aerial survey. Can you say a bit more about that? Presumably it involves not people in helicopters looking down, but cameras and computer analysis. That sounds quite exciting.
That may be proved correct—I will check with Dr Pendlebury and David Howat. My understanding is that an aerial survey does not involve someone sitting at the window of a plane that is flying over and looking down; it is more scientific and involves recording aerial photographs and inspecting them to see whether there is any damage.
Actually, we have found that the most efficient way to use helicopters is to get a trained eye on board.
There we go—I have been proved wrong.
Part of the challenge is to get more of those trained eyes, as at present we rely on two or three people. For phytophthora in particular we need someone in the helicopter who can spot the early signs of the disease. In a day’s flight—if it is well planned—they can cover large parts of Galloway and further up the west coast. They take geo-referenced photographs, which means that the surveyors can go in and do the ground truthing.
There is the potential for developing remote sensors and all the rest, which is very exciting. If we had only aerial photographic cover, we would need people to spend a very long time going through a lot of aerial photographs to try to identify signs of the disease. We have found that it is very efficient at present to have a helicopter run and get a trained eye into the helicopter that can home in very quickly on where there seems to be evidence of phytophthora or something else.
That tends to confirm what we have always known, which is that very little beats the mark 1 eyeball.
I have been trying to bring in Claire Baker, but other colleagues keep coming up with questions. Claudia Beamish can go next.
Thank you, convener. I have two quite specific questions that build on those that other members have asked.
The first relates to the fear, which the Woodland Trust Scotland has highlighted to me, of the spread of phytophthora from larch to native oak. Do you have any comments on that? I wondered whether it is a concern, so that we can be ahead of the game on that one.
Within the ash family—which I believe is Fraxinus in Latin—there seems to be a whole range of species. We have discussed local seeds, and I wonder how the scientists will balance the appropriateness of importing the Excelsior seed, which is shown to be resistant to dieback, against the question whether we can develop resistance in Scotland. As has been pointed out, there are ways of developing resistance. Can you comment on both those issues?
If I may, I will direct the question on phytophthora to James Pendlebury.
On native species, I think that there is at least one other strain of ash—possibly Fraxinus americana—that is also resistant. Clearly, from an ecological point of view, there would be major advantages if we could identify native exemplar trees that are showing resistance and propagate from those rather than use imported species.
I will ask James Pendlebury to address the question about the transference of phytophthora to oak trees.
As everyone knows, Phytophthora ramorum is also called sudden oak death syndrome—in America it kills American oak, particularly where there is a laurel understory. In the UK, the early discoveries of Phytophthora ramorum in the south-west of England mainly affected beech, even in mixed woodlands, so in the UK oak seems to have been reasonably unaffected by it. To be honest, it was a bit of a surprise to everyone that the disease managed to jump from hardwoods into larch—there was no evidence in the literature that that would occur. I would not say that there is any complacency, but the evidence that we have to date is that in the UK oak is relatively unaffected by Phytophthora ramorum. We are keeping a weather eye on it.
On species selection, this is probably stating the obvious, but the issue is what you want from the site and from the forest that you are creating. There are lots of native alternatives to ash that could be planted—for example, alder for river situations—but there are limitations. Some of the alternatives such as sycamore are pretty vulnerable to grey squirrel damage, so various factors need to be taken into account. There are alternative species choices, and those are being discussed with the sector at present.
I hope that if we get together a coherent breeding for resistance programme across the UK, we will pick up trees from throughout the environment that have a degree of resistance and that we can breed from those. Obviously, we should be able to track or trace the origin of those, but it may be that we have to make the sacrifice of taking the tree not from the glen but from a neighbouring strath, if we get the resistance—I say that without being glib. It will just depend on where we pick up trees that we can breed resistance from. There will then be a management decision as to whether a tree is acceptable for a particular site.
I thank Claudia Beamish for asking those questions. The next question is from Claire Baker.
Convener, thank you. I very much appreciate the opportunity to take part this morning.
I very much welcome the minister’s comments this morning and the amount of activity that he has described that aims to tackle ash disease in Scotland, but he will recognise that the delay in identifying the disease at UK level is a matter of concern. The problem was identified in Scotland in July, yet the summit did not happen until the end of November. However, I appreciate that the minister has been in the job only since September, so that might give him some cover on that issue.
The delay led to a degree of confusion, which it is good to hear the minister has recognised in his communications with stakeholders. When I met stakeholders prior to the summit, they were receiving their information largely from the media, which we know is not always the most reliable source. They also had concerns around the way in which the public were informed of the threat. I checked the Forestry Commission website, and there was no public advice notice until the end of October or the very beginning of November—post the question from John Scott. I have concerns about the way in which the public and the Parliament were engaged.
Spring and summer—which in Scotland may seem far away at the moment—are the times of greatest infection risk. Looking forward to then, how will we improve that public awareness and parliamentary involvement? David Howat said that we can learn lessons from what has happened, which suggests that there have been mistakes. How do we improve as we look forward to spring and summer?
11:00
I will start with that last point. With a response to a pest crisis such as this, we will learn lessons. From my view from outside the work of Forestry Commission Scotland, and in the short time for which I have been a minister, I have been impressed by the urgency with which Forestry Commission Scotland has dealt with the issue. I would not want to give the impression that I am in any way critical of the work that has been done. I am grateful for the sacrifices that people have made in their personal lives, such as giving up a weekend to do the rapid response survey. I am grateful to the staff for the effective way in which they went about that.
Having said that, we will do a post-match analysis and work out where we can improve. As a number of members have mentioned, including most recently Richard Lyle, many pests can affect our woodlands and commercial forestry sector, so we have to learn and ensure that the process is honed and becomes more effective in future.
On communication, Forest Research and Forestry Commission staff were working at full pelt on the rapid survey, so engagement was perhaps difficult, other than through websites and press releases. That was probably the most effective way in which to get the message out quickly. Obviously, we had an input to the press releases. However, if external stakeholders say that they wanted information earlier, we will learn from that and try to ensure that it does not happen again.
The stakeholder meeting was certainly effective. Such meetings are a useful vehicle for engaging with people and giving them the opportunity to interact with not only the minister, but the experts. The expertise round the table included scientific expertise and expertise in forestry management practices, which allowed stakeholders to ask the questions that they needed to ask about issues such as what to do if they find an infected tree on their estate; how to advise people who are walking in a forest; and whether to mark off areas and prevent people from walking through them. It was a good opportunity for people from the RSPB, the SWT and other non-governmental organisations, as well as people from the commercial forestry sector, to interrogate me and my advisers and officials and to get the information in the way that they needed.
If I take a lesson from all this, it is that that process was helpful. It was helpful to me to engage with the stakeholders, but it was also helpful to them to engage with the experts round the table. I will certainly try to use that approach again. Perhaps towards the spring, in advance of the new growing season for trees, we will have another meeting to set out what symptoms we are looking for and to give an update on our knowledge of the presence of the disease. At that meeting, we can also perhaps address some of the other tree pests that we are aware of and give advice on what other things people should look for when they do their inspections. A big lesson that I have taken from the process is that such meetings are a useful vehicle that we should perhaps use more often.
The map that we have of Chalara fraxinea shows that, basically, the wider environment is infected, particularly in the south-east of England and in a small corridor up the east coast to Fife, and that the vast number of other areas where the disease has been found are recently planted sites. That means that, in the bulk of Britain, recent plantings are the identified issue in the spread of the disease. From what you have said, we know that there is potential for airborne spread to the areas nearest the continent. It would be useful for us all if we had an update in the spring, before we start talking about the actions that need to be taken.
To sum up what has been said, the issue is on-going and knowledge is developing. It is useful for members to be involved in arboriculture so that we do not forget that we have an important duty to that part of the rural environment. I thank the minister for coming. We will try to make a date with you and your officials at an appropriate time, once you have received the next report on the issue.
We will have a short suspension before we consider the Aquaculture and Fisheries (Scotland) Bill.
11:04
Meeting suspended.
11:08
On resuming—